With over $23 trillion in sales done in e-commerce, how do you distinguish yourself from the competitors? A huge resonating trend in e-commerce is having an established brand voice. Everything from your product catalog down to your tweets are part of your ‘image’ and it’s important to maintain that image. When a customer thinks of ‘good looking shoes’ or ‘comfiest shirts’ you want them to think of you first. What you need is a clear, consistent brand voice.
1. Reinforce with on-site promotions & imagery
An easy way to start converting and keeping your message clear is by running onsite promotions to reinforce your brand. A great example of that is Allbirds.
Powerful hero images as headers with flashy, bold text are their bread and butter. Allbirds prefers to take a casual feel, they’re light on the copy and personalize their message to consumers.
SivanaSpirit is a great example of promotions that mirror and reinforce brand voice. This Justuno client is a small, family-owned mindful lifestyle business located in CA. Reflecting their specific brand voice, Sivana Spirit employs a serene landscape as imagery for their full-screen promotion, keeping their motif going. Calm, mindful, and clean.
2. ‘Visualize’ your brand
Have you ever thought about your Brand visualized? What it would look like if you were going to see your brand as an actual human being? What type of clothes and ‘look’? Would it be casual, refined, informal?
All of these decisions need to be taken into account while you establish your brand. Try it out: as a business owner, a thought experiment like this is hugely important. To some, your brand and your content are going to be that vividly depictable. Make sure you stay consistent.
3. Spice up your social posting + interaction
Interacting with your consumers is big for e-commerce. Many things can go wrong whilst shopping online, from deliverability to product quality, so be proactive. Create visible social channels and encourage your consumers to interact with you and/or your support team when they have an issue. If a problem arises and you consistently address it with just a bit of your brand flavor, you’re going to build a loyal following.
As an e-commerce user myself, if I know Shop A has a better return policy and brand interaction than Shop B, I know where I’m spending my money. Justuno loves the usage of gifs. (Our slack channel has some quality gif usage.) Leveraging that in customer interaction gives a friendly feel that is often missing in conversations with most companies.
4. Use your brand voice in email marketing
Email marketing is still king of ROI Your emails are an extension of your brand voice as well, treat it like you’re speaking to your consumer, not selling to them.
Here’s an example from Rover. With a pupper hero image and formatted text that is almost like a real handwritten letter, Rover makes it clear they’re thankful for the consumer’s engagement and keeps the dog-focused copy consistent. Rover and its community are absolutely crazy for all things to do with man’s best friend. Keeping their brand’s motive consistent, they incorporate the dog focused brand voice into their welcome emails.
5. Incorporate your brand with lifestyle imagery
Whilst not all brands can incorporate ‘lifestyle’ images, human-centric marketing has proven to receive higher CTR and engagements. Although E-commerce is widely prevalent in today’s online world, consumers still need to trust you. The easiest way to have consumers trust and envision themselves using your products is by using lifestyle shots, whenever possible.
Allbirds incorporates moving footage along with their still imagery to invoke a certain ‘feeling’ when you think of their product. Without physically having the product in front of you, Allbirds still conveys the look, touch and fit of the product. Comfy, clean, attractive.
SivanaSpirit’s blog postings are all about their niche. As a family-owned business, the founders are perfectly in tune with their audience and are cognizant of what those consumers want to see, read and feel. “Power Crystals” and “Energy cleansing” are topics that SivanaSpirit’s buyers want to study and look into. Again, when a consumer thinks ‘healing’ and ‘spirit apparel’ Sivana Spirit will be the first thing to mind because their brand message is consistent and clear.
Lifestyle shots of their power crystals are also a huge win. People want to see how your product looks on them, and lifestyle shots give you that option.
Your brand is exactly that: your brand. Own the space and own your message.
Need some inspiration? Check out these branding and design examples from some of the top brands in e-commerce!
