Top Tips for Branding, Promoting and Marketing Your E-Commerce Site Properly Tutorial

Top Tips for Branding, Promoting and Marketing Your E-Commerce Site Properly

In today's economy, where jobs are getting harder to come by, more and more people are turning to making money online with their own e-commerce site. And that means that the e-commerce industry, and the competition is getting tougher and tougher to compete with.

And yes, it's easy to start your own e-commerce site, but if you want to dominate the corner of your market, you'll need to grow your brand name using digital marketing techniques. Knowing and not knowing these techniques will make or break your e-commerce biz.

So whether you've been running an e-commerce site or are just starting out, these e-commerce marketing tips will help you to get a solid foot hold to climb up above your competitors!

Branding is Everything

When thinking about creating an e-commerce site, it's good to think big. And it's good to think about how you can brand your site or business too. A good brand with a good name will go much further than some generic site will. Your customers will remember your site if their experience was a good one. So branding is the first and foremost thing you should think about. Some of the top branding elements to think of are;

Your Company / Business Name

The name you choose for your business or enterprise, is going to be the name that your customers and people will identify with that separates you from the rest of the crowd. It's the first thing your new customers will see and in order to make a good strong first impression with those new buyers, it should be something that is catchy and easy to remember. But it should also somehow relate to the industry your e-commerce site or business is in as well. So you should spend some time on this and not just use the first thing that comes to mind.

Although first ideas are usually the best. You should jot down some possibly brand names and then sleep on them! Taking your time to create a brand name will help you realize why and how each brand name you come up with has its strong and weak points. The other thing to consider when thinking of a brand name is domain availability. Not all domains will be available, that's why you should try to be unique in your brand name creation. Always, always check first to see if your brand name is available as a .com. You don't want to register a LTD company or LLC and then find out the .com isn't available for it!

Your Company / Business Tagline or Slogan

Your companies tagline or slogan is just as important as your company or business's brand name. You will want to have a tagline or slogan that people can relate to. Something that says something about your company/business or e-commerce store that is short, sweet and to the point. Something that expresses your good values in a quick one liner. A good tagline will help your targeted audience to immediately trust you, or not. Look at Google's slogan "Don't Be Evil". What does that say about Google? It says that Google is a company that recognizes there is evil in the world and tries to do its most to not be evil. You can use that as an example.

But if you are finding it hard to come up with a catchy slogan or tagline for your new e-commerce business. You can make use of some free online slogan maker like GoSpaces Free Slogan Maker.

It's so easy to use. Just enter some words related to your industry. Let's say I wanted to create a cool slogan for SEOClerks. Just put in SEO Clerks as the keywords and hit submit. You will be given many many different slogans to choose from and from this, you can either use one of the suggested slogans, or use them to help create your own. Pretty cool since it's free don't you think?


Your Company / Business Logo

Ah the logo. That's something that you need to put some thought into. And it can really help if you learn these following tips about how to create the perfect logo for your site. Just like your company / business name or slogan, the log can help make or break you in the e-commerce industry. And it's also something that people will be able to identify with! A boring, dull, low-quality, flat and lifeless logo wont really stand out from the rest. But a bright, vibrant logo that makes use of the right colors will. Different colors invoke different emotions in people. For example, dull colours like browns and greys don't omit much energy. But bright vivid colours like red, blue, green and yellow do. Yellow is the color of energy and excitement. Why do you think I use a yellow background for my avatar on here?

But knowing this is only half the battle. You will want to spend some time on your logo and look at how you can make it stand out and appeal to people. To the very people that want to buy your products or services. If you don't have any graphic design skills at all. That's fine! You can hire a professional logo developer to create one for you. Just check out the Graphics and Logos category, sort by top rated and you'll be able to find someone that you can hire to create the perfect killer logo for you!



Maximize Your Website's Chance of Success

Okay once you've nailed your branding, you'll now need to step out into the big world of website design. Since your website is going to be the main and sole way that your customers will interact with you and your brand, and the sole thing you'll be driving traffic to and doing marketing and promotion of you'll want to make sure it's working according to modern website standards and design. And since your website will be representing your business, you'll want to make sure that the website itself is;

Mobile Friendly and Optimized

These days, mobile searchers surpass desktop searchers, so your website should be optimized for mobile traffic as well as desktop traffic. It will need to look and work good on both desktop devices (Windows, MAC's, Linux etc) and mobile devices (Mobiles, tablets etc). Not just looking good and working across multiple platforms and devices, but also optimized to load fast as well. Slow, laggy websites will send your users running to your competitors site. So you'll have to spend some time on learning how to optimize your website so that it's platform friendly and loads fast on all and any device.

Highlighting Your Branding

Once you've nailed the branding down to a T, and you've spent time on making sure your site is mobile friendly, fast loading and efficient. You don't want to neglect other aspects and elements on your site that make your site a fully functioning and functional working site. You'll want to also do things like, from as simple as, making sure your logo is prevalent on each page or post or category etc on your site. And using the same color swatches throughout your site. Using the same color swatch is critical as colors represent moods and you don't want to change your potential client/customers mood from a happy one to a blue one. So it's just absolutely critical if you want to keep a strong brand identity of your e-commerce site by making sure the sites colors are used consistently across and throughout all of your site!

Make Use of Call To Actions

As a brand, your e-commerce site is the best marketing tool you will have. Sure you can get a lot of followers on Social Media sites like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter etc etc. But those platforms really limit you in what you can do on them. So for that reason, you should put a lot of emphasis on the call to actions you use on your site. Whether it's asking someone to do something for some reason, to taking a small customer focused survey, to subscribing to your newsletter. Don't be afraid to make use of call to actions on your site as it is your most potent of all places to ask people of and for things.

Be Unique Only!

Many marketers and e-commerce business owners can spend a lot of time on marketing and promotion, that they neglect to add 100% unique content to their site. A lot of e-commerce business owners will use what's known in the industry as "boilerplate" content on their site. Or even use the manufacturers descriptions without adding a single fresh word of unique content to them as well. Then they wonder why their site isn't ranking!? There are many many benefits to writing, or having written, unique content for your e-commerce site. Whether it's for your blog or for your product pages. Quite simply, unique content out ranks duplicate content and stands out from the crowd! Also, your content is critical in swaying your potential clients/customers decision on making a purchase. So you'll want your content to be compelling and helpful for them from that perspective!

Utilize Offsite Marketing Methods

Of course, your website itself can make for a very powerful marketing tool that can help you grow your brand online. But there are other offsite marketing tools you can take advantage of as well. From Social Media to Email Marketing. Advertising on other sites and the like. And those other offsite marketing efforts can really pay off in the long run so you don't want to neglect them if you can.

Some tips to leverage offsite marketing include;

Email marketing - don't send too many emails too quickly! Be persistent but don't be annoying! I've "unsubscribed" from many email newsletters in the past simply because they sent me too many emails. One guy sent me up to 10+ emails in one day, every day for 3 days. I probably would have got more if I hadn't unsubscribed from his spammy newsletters!

Email marketing can be a very effective tool at driving traffic and conversions to and from your site. But you'll need to strike the right balance in how many you send. Also you'll want to make sure your emails are helpful and informative to people as well. Not just telling them about some x product they can buy as much as telling them why they should but it. But even if they don't, they still learn something new. That keeps people on tenterhooks!

Utilize Social Media

Of course, this one goes without saying, but any e-commerce brand should be making use of Social Media. It can be an excellent source of highly targeted traffic that you can use to send traffic to your e-commerce site. Social media also gives your targeted audience a platform and way to communicate and engage and interact with your e-commerce brand or site. But social media isn't just some one-way channel. It's a two-way thing. It's made up of real people that you can use to create relationships with. Show that you care about them by reaching out to them and always responding to posts, comments and questions on your social media pages.

Social media can also help to give your e-commerce store or brand some extra "face" online as well. Most savvy shoppers will always look on the social media page of a website they haven't used before to see how responsive and active that brand is. To see how well they communicate and treat their followers before deciding on making a purchase. Think about that when thinking about using Social Media for this reason.

Utilize Other Brands

Okay my last tip for you, and this one is a real gem! A gem that is mostly underused and overlooked by most new e-commerce brands. But someone smart said once that "To succeed at marketing today, you need to go where your targeted clients are." And those are words that you can live by to succeed with your e-commerce store as well. Your new e-commerce store or brand or social following will be finite in its reach. But you can boost that reach by literally reaching out to and interacting with other brands in the same niche as you.

Ever heard the expression "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer"? Well this is sort of similar to that. You see how it works is finding other brands and e-commerce stores and sites in the same niche as yours. Then commenting on their blog posts and things and dropping the occasional link to your own site. While some brands might not publish your comment, or publish it without a link, provided your comments are very high quality, they will! And by being active and frequently commenting on their articles and blog posts and things, you will be getting your brand or domain name seen by their following and circles.

In today's marketplace, the e-commerce industry is a thriving one. But it's also a cut-throat one too.

For new e-commerce entrepreneurs, these are some solid e-commerce tips you can apply to succeed!

And that's my Top Tips for Promoting and Marketing Your E-Commerce Site Properly!

I hope you'll find these e-commerce tips useful and apply them.

As always, give this article a thumbs up if you liked it.

And do feel free to ask any questions or add anything you want to it.

Thanks and to your success!

Mike.