Branding is a complex process of creating a positive, strong company’s perception of your goods or services in the mind of marketplace sellers such as Amazon, eBay, Cdiscount, PriceMinister and more. Branding on Amazon requires you to carefully plan before launching your store on the platform. A strong brand creates an easy relationship with the target audience and attracts values. Having a strong brand will even make your business not to compete on price with other businesses on marketplaces. Branding doesn’t just protect your sales on marketplaces like Amazon; it also adds more growth to it.
The necessity of branding as a Third-party Seller
It’s confirmed you sell on Amazon, but you might be thinking you don’t need a brand, the fact is that you do because there’re possibilities that your listings get hijacked, and having a trademark will give effective protection to your listings. Brand protection on Amazon can be very proactive in removing contents that infringes or that is inaccurate. A unique branding has a huge impact on online business by offering an advantage among fellow competitors, and it also helps in building a loyal customer base.
It would be such a waste if you only register brand for marketplace rules. There are so many more benefits of brand awareness:
- Marketing your products with bigger flexibilities. There are varieties of rules to follow when editing and marketing your listings(Amazon is a pretty good example which has detailed instructions on listing edits for better customer experience). However, with your own website, you can make the call with more cerativity (such as putting ‘buy 1 get 1 free’ on title, which isn’t allowed on lots of marketplaces). You can also spend less budget on getting traffic by running SEO blogs.
- Always get prepared. It’s not totally impossible that your listings move down in ranks, or even get suspended for unpredictable reason. If you don’t have any presence on Internet under that circumstances, you might lose that customer to someone else. You’d still have second chance if customer searching you on the whole internet when s/he couldn’t find you on a certain marketplace.
- Upscale your profit margin. On marketplaces you don’t have to worry about credibility, but as a third-party sellers you have to pay monthly fee and commission for every sale. You can build your own website easily via Shopify, WordPress, Wix and more, and the cost compared to marketplace is a big saving for you.
- Less pressure on cash flow. Most reputable marketplaces have strict rules on delivery time, which is also an important matrix for customers’ purchase decision. It’s trending that sellers use FBA or equivalent storage and fulfillment service to keep up with marketplaces’ requirements. But with your own brand and your own website, you can choose to dropship some of your popular products since you don’t have to pay upfront fee for warehouse and bulk purchase.
Here are a few steps you should take when building your own brand
• Customers Understanding: Identifying and leveraging on the influential elements that easily motivate your target customers is the first step you have to take; this will help you have an effective communication with them. You must know what they like about your brand, what attracts them, and many more.
• Set your Brand Persona: Customer experiences have to be delivered, so therefore you have to define your business personality. The insights gathered manageably about your target audience will be strongly influenced; the tone of voice that suits them most, the type of language that will come with a greater effect, and the image that will call for their attention.
• Brand Promises must be made crystal clear: Whatever promises you are making to your customers should be of no hidden meaning. The promises have to be clear and well understood. They will want to know what is in for them when they purchase your products or subscribe to your services. They want to know the positive effect your products/services will bring to their life. They will also want to know how your promises will be delivered.
• Give back: Extend discounts. Offer free gifts occasionally. Run promotions or special loyalty programs; all these and even a “Thank You” goes a long way in maintaining your relationship with your customers and in humanizing your brand.
• Your Visual Assets has to be Perfect: Visual experience on Amazon is extremely important as the shoppers usually don’t have the luxury of feeling or touching your products they ordered. The visual assets of your brand are “everything you say you offer and all the reasons why your business is the best” in elements like website design, logos, ad designs, fonts and typography, color palette including the experience you create on packaging and unboxing. This branding tool is very powerful, and it is always at its peak.
Conclusion
Branding gives you an edge over your competitors on Amazon. It is strategic you brand your business on Amazon and make the name known by all means listed because Amazon customers don’t often care about your brand due to the fact that Amazon might start selling the same product you are selling. Making your name and your brand known will always bring back your customers.
