The incredible growth in ecommerce has attracted intense competition. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are bedazzled by the growth and tempted into the industry in search of massive future profitability. Yet, although competition is great for consumers, producing a diversity of products and services while driving prices down, it is often anathema to profitability and brand visibility. Being discovered in this hyper-competitive industry is harder than ever. And with barriers to entry so low, a brand can easily find itself eclipsed by a suddenly viral brand. Big, established firms can often prove to be unexpected rivals. I’m here to help you figure out how to create an unforgettable ecommerce brand.
Firstly, you have to understand what an ecommerce brand is. Many people point to a logo and say, “This is my brand”, or describe how they do business as their “brand”. Neither idea truly gets at what a brand, and particularly an ecommerce brand, is. An ecommerce brand is more than just your business’ logo, the brand name, or the tagline. By “customer experience” we mean the perception that customers have of your brand’s products and services based on their exposure to them. It is the sum total of your customer’s perception of your brand. Unlike customer service, customer experience does not neatly fall into a specific unit of your business.
Understand Your Customer
In a hypercompetitive world, standing out is just the beginning: you have to have a compelling value proposition that makes you the default brand for your customer’s needs. To give your customer the best customer experience. Legendary venture capitalist, Marc Andreessen, calls this the product-market fit and thinks it’s “the only thing that matters”. Understanding your customer is the first step toward creating a brand that delivers exactly what the customer wants, and then some.
You have to understand your primary and secondary markets and tailor your brand so that it is most appealing to your primary demographic. Remember, when we talk about customer experience, we are involving everything about your business: what they feel about products, services, etc. You have to tweak all these elements to ensure you have a truly powerful brand. There’s no point having a great logo if your products suck. Product-market fit is the most important thing you have to work on, but everything has to fall into place to deliver a truly powerful brand.
Deliver Compelling Value
We mentioned product-market fit. This stage is about delivering just that. Leonardo da Vinci sketched out the first tank centuries before one was ever built. The lesson of this is that having a great product means nothing if there is no market for it. Once you understand your market, you can deliver a product that it will go crazy for. Well, that’s the dream.
Product-market fit at its best means that consumers are so hungry for what you’re selling that you cannot make it fast enough. Your revenue growth is through the roof, you retain a massive proportion of your clients, clients report insane levels of customer satisfaction, and overall, the product seems to sell itself because it meets such a badly unmet need. For instance, the best microblading services struggle to keep up with demand. The service sells itself. Achieving that happy state of affairs is the goal of every entrepreneur and it should be your goal too.
