Ever wonder why established businesses like McDonald’s or Coca-cola spend millions on brand building? Building a solid and easily recognizable brand gives you a HUGE advantage over the competition because products have limited life cycles but brands can be remembered forever. For online stores, the same brand building emphasis is critical.
Carefully building your brand identity from the start is as important to your online store as picking the right e-commerce platform to build from. If you’re looking for creative ways to make your online business a stand out from the competition, here are five ideas you can consider.
- Establish your identity through good content
“Content is King,” according to billionaire Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates. Creating interesting, meaningful content to attract customers to your online store is a great strategy in fostering marketing buzz and eventually, a loyal customer base.
Work extra hard to deliver quality content that appeal to your patrons. To the discerning consumer, that effort won’t go unnoticed and most likely will translate into brand loyalty over time.
- Humanize your business
Customers, like most human beings, like to be understood and recognized as unique individuals. However, many businesses fail to understand and meet this basic human need.
Humanizing your business means engaging with your audience; creating content that they can share and understand. This also means attaching values to your brand that will appeal to your audience, whether it’s trustworthiness, fun or family-focused.
- Offer unique products
Here’s a quick way to establish a competitive advantage over your rival: offer unique and quality products. Adding meaningful value to an existing product can also work in this regard.
However, quality should still be the most important concern when selling products. For instance, you may have unique gadgets to sell, but they’re shoddy and prone to malfunction. Your business is more likely to suffer than prosper whenever a customer leaves a negative feedback about your items. Never sacrifice quality for uniqueness.
Checking product reviews on marketplace sites like Amazon can give you good insight on the preferences of customers. What do customers like? What gets on their nerves? Take advantage of this information, improve your product, and you’ll see great results.
- Ensure great customer service
This method is part and parcel of humanizing your brand. Providing customer service that goes beyond what’s expected is what turns one-time customers to brand loyalists. Going beyond the call of duty and giving your full focus and support to your consumers in their time of need makes for a fantastic way to elevate your brand above the others.
- Sell an experience
Another fun way to connect with your potential customers and keep your existing patrons engaged is to craft a narrative and share it with them.
Let’s say you create an online clothing shop to sell your fashion creations to a niche customer base. Your customers will definitely be interested in how you come about with your clothing ideas. Take the initiative and share your thought process, creative ideas, through regular blog posts. They’ll appreciate the effort you take, especially when you respond to their queries.
Making promises and promptly delivering on them is also part of this narrative. By showing that you care about your relationship with the customers, your online store will earn a memorable soft spot in their hearts. They’ll keep coming back for more of your brand and what you stand for.
