INTRO (Male Voice Recording): Welcome to YourMarketingPodcast. This is Series One – How to Start a Successful eCommerce Business in Less than 30 Days. In this step-by-step guide, you will learn how to quickly launch an eCommerce store and start seeing those sales roll in! And here’s your host…Ishani DePillo. 

Ishani: Hi, everyone, Ishani DePillo here. Welcome to another episode of Your Marketing Podcast. I’m so excited to cover today’s topic with you. It’s all about branding, and how to determine your target audience.

So last episode was packed full of helpful tips on business fundamentals. We covered getting your entity set up, keeping your personal finances separate from your business finances and funding for your eCommerce store. If you haven’t had the chance to listen to that episode yet, I recommend that you do because we go over a lot of recommendations that are essential to creating a new business.

Okay, so You have your product. You know it’s going to be in demand and you know that it’s going to be profitable. Now, we need to build your brand by talking about your story.

You might be asking, “What? Why does it matter who I am? I have a product. It’s going to sell on its own. Why do I have to tell my story?” 

But is it going to sell on it’s own? Is the product truly enough nowadays to compete with SO MANY online businesses?

Well, let’s take a look back…to 2006.

A man travels around Argentina, noticing the hardships faced by kids who can’t afford a pair of shoes. He then starts a company that donates a pair of shoes to a child in need, for every pair of shoe sold. Now over 50 million pairs of shoes have been donated and in 2014, the company was valued at $625 million. What’s the name of this company?

If you guessed, TOM’s shoes, you are correct!

What a great brand story – it pulls at your heart strings and makes you feel positively towards the brand. But a brand story doesn’t need to be altruistic. It could be many things.

Let’s take another walk down memory lane.

It’s 2009, San Francisco, California. An app launches to “evolve the way the world moves” and “make cities more accessible.”

Can you guess this giant who’s worth over 14 billion? Uber, yes, uber.

Their story was all about going against the status quo and redefining the ride-sharing experience. And it worked!

But not all brands are going to disrupt the market. And that’s ok! You should still highlight your brand story.

Skip to 3:19Let’s go over some great ways to build a memorable story for your brand:

1. Highlight a problem, a problem that’s relatable, that almost everyone experiences. Remember in episode 1 when we talked about developing a product that solves a problem? If you used that method to come up with your product, then you can use the problem as part of your brand story. In fact, that’s exactly what we did for Roam Often. Three tangled necklaces. That’s all it took for Roam Often to be born. After untangling necklace after necklace—in Napa, in Greece, and in Spain— my co-founder Alisha, was fed up. She wanted a functional, beautiful way to transport her style without the hassle. And being a fellow jewelry aficionado myself, I agreed. And so Roam Often was born. We used a problem to draft up a compelling brand story that most women can relate to.
2. Embrace your uniqueness, what makes you stand out from the rest. Are you an underdog in your market? Did you face hardship? Have you experienced something unbelievable that made you stronger, professionally or personally? If so, then talk about it! All of that makes you, you, and your brand, your brand. People want authenticity, and realness. You need to find a way to feel connected to your customers and they need to connect with you and your brand.
3. Can your brand be more than a brand? Can it be a lifestyle? By creating a “lifestyle” centered around your brand, you are essentially creating a fanbase who follow the same ideals and live and breathe your brand. A good example here is what Red Bull did with extreme events and sports, like kitesurfing and skydiving. The lifestyle and brand are so intertwined that Red Bull is more than just an energy drink.
4. What does your brand stand for? Your brand story has to be more than a simple mission statement or company profile that you post on your About page. It trickles down to your company’s core principles and will impact your company as a whole. Take time here to really develop your vision and your core values. For instance, yes, Roam Often sells jewelry travel cases, but our brand is more than that, as we say on the website, “Roam Often is much more than a tangled necklace, though. It’s about inspiring style everywhere your travels take you. Our products are designed to help you, be you, wherever you roam.”

Okay, let’s start building your brand story? Start with bullets and then expand from there. If you get stuck, take a minute and walk around. Try to get those creative juices flowing again and reread your bullets. Your brand story can evolve, especially in the early stages, so don’t get stuck and just keep going. Get a rough draft of your brand story written; you can always hire a copywriter to finesse it later on. Just keep at it!

Danielle from DNM Studios, who specializes in branding and human-centered design provided some easy questions to ask yourself to develop your brand story.

Now I’m going to pivot a little bit here. Because we’ve covered a lot about “you” in this episode, and not enough about “them” – your future customers, your future buyers.

A brand has to be more than about you. Brands that fail to add their customers into the brand story equation miss out on truly connecting with their customers. 

You need to understand your ideal customer – their  challenges? their fears? What do they like? What do they dislike? Where do they hang out? What are their values? What do they care about? You need to think about as much information about them as possible. This is where buyer persona(s) come into play. Having a deep understanding of your customer is a critical part of any business because it drives a lot of factors from product development to customer acquisition. 

Skip to 10:04Let’s dive into how to develop buyer personas, so you can fully understand who you want to attract, and sell to. Buyer personas (sometimes referred to as marketing personas) are basically a very detailed vision of your ideal customer or customers. Like Mommy Martha or Too Busy Tom. You create fictional personas so you can understand how to better serve your ideal customers and how to speak to them.

For example, maybe Busy Mommy Mary is your ideal customer – She’s a mother of two, constantly running around between dropping off and picking up her kids from school, exercising, managing the household, plus she’s trying to find the time to get her business off the ground. She’s been struggling to find time to devote to her baking business. She has a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that would make your mouth water. 

And guess what? You are selling the mixer that cuts prep time in half, that will not only save her a ton of time but also make those cookies taste even better.

Busy Mommy Mary needs your product to save time (because she doesn’t have any to spare), she needs your product to help her business soar, and she’s accidently helped you discover your value proposition – your product helps your customers create delicious creations in half the time, so they can get back to living their busy beautiful life. 

Now, one thing to keep in mind, your customer personas may change. In fact, you might be super surprised, once your product launches to find out that other personas are buying your product (you didn’t even think of!). That’s to be expected, because once you start collecting data, you can really hone into those customers.

You might be asking, “Well then why do this exercise before I have customers?” The reason we recommend doing this exercise early is to help shape your brand and make sure that your product, brand, and customers all align. For instance, let’s say your product is geared towards teenage girls, then your brand colors, website tone, etc. needs to speak to the teenage audience, and you have to market your product on platforms where your target audience is at. It’s unlikely the typical teenage girl is on LinkedIn so marketing on LinkedIn won’t work.  Know your audience and it will help shape your brand, product and all marketing efforts. That’s the recipe for success.

Now, let’s do a quick check-in:

• Brand story, Check.
• Customer personas, Check.
• Next up, Brand name and logo…

Coming up with a brand name can be daunting because there isn’t an exact science to it. 

A brand name should allow you to grow without having to limit yourself to one product, location, services, etc. A great brand name will introduce your product to your customers and be memorable, so they come back again and again. Let’s go over some ways to come up with your perfect brand name:

1. Brand’s Purpose – A brand name should somewhat make sense to what you are selling but also give you the opportunity to expand into other products. For instance, if you use “Everything Cereal” as your brand name, then you are limiting yourself to just Cereal, but what if you decide to expand yourself into other types of breakfast products like Oatmeal, breakfast bars, etc. Don’t pigeon-hole yourself to one product. What if Jeff Bezos named his company “Online Bookstore”? He would have been stuck just selling books or would have had to rebrand at some point to what is now known as Amazon.  Chances are you are going to grow and add more to your product line. So make sure you pick a name that can be an umbrella for everything you sell. The best way to do this is by thinking about your brand’s purpose. What does your brand or product stand for? Are you solving a problem, are you providing a benefit of some sort like speed or efficiency? Basically, if you can answer WHY does your brand exist? It will help you come up with a good brand name that allows your business to pivot, evolve and grow.

   We have Alisha Chocha, the co-founder of Roam Often, and Your Marketing People here to share some insights into our process in deciding on the name, Roam Often.

2. Our second pointer in deciding on a brand name is to choose one that Evokes an Emotional Response. A brand name should evoke an emotion from your buyers. Like Nike is the Greek Goddess of victory, which is a powerful concept and inline with what they sell.
   
3. Make it easy to remember. You can use puns, play on words, etc. but just remember, at the end of the day, you NEED your customers to remember your brand, so they come back again and again. It needs to stick.
   
4. Make it easy to pronounce. Because it will get frustrating when you have to spend time correcting everyone all the time! Plus, if it’s hard to say; then it’s probably even harder to spell. This presents a problem. What is the oldest and still, most effective form of marketing? If you said word-of-mouth, you are right. So your customers have to be able to pronounce your brand name to their family and friends. In return the person that was referred has to be able to easily spell it so they can type it into Google. Get those referrals! 

I recommend staying away from your own name unless you are the face of your brand. It makes sense when you are creating content like video, podcasts, etc. but maybe not if you are selling a product. And especially if your plan is to build a company that can eventually run on it’s own or be sold, then it’s probably best to not use your name. 

Ok Let’s Brainstorm – just do a lighting speed round of tossing out ideas, no judgement. No bad ideas, just write it all down. You could do words that rhyme, play on words,  also use an online thesaurus to come up with different variations and/or combine words to create new ones (just remember our tip about pronunciation!). 

Like most business owners, you will probably come up with several brand names. Now it’s time to check domain availability. You can do a domain name search on sites like GoDaddy to see which names are available. Also, check social media channels, like Facebook and Instagram, to see if the social media handles are also available. You could also be extra careful and check the US Patent office to make sure your name isn’t currently trademarked. But if the domain name is available, it probably doesn’t have a trademark.

When you find an available domain name that you are satisfied with go ahead and buy it, so you can start building your website. The cost of buying a domain is most likely around $10 – $15 dollars per year. You could even purchase a non-.com website, like “.co”  “.us” or “.shop,” depending on what is available and if you are happy with an alternate domain extension.

Our SEO expert, Chris Casarez shares a trick of his to get your website ranked faster on Google, so something to consider while you’re purchasing a domain. 

Skip to 25:12Okay, guys, we’re in the home stretch – two more essential parts to cover: the logo and the branding document.

First up – the logo.

The logo is part of branding – it makes you stand out from your competition and hopefully speaks to your customers. A great logo also evokes an emotion and adds more to your story.

As a digital marketing agency, we’ve had experience building logos for clients, and we always start with developing a brand identity and understanding how the brand want to be perceived to their ideal customer. For instance, should the brand come across as modern, vintage or classic? Masculine or feminine or both? Playful or mature? Economical, handmade or luxurious? Minimal or Decorative?

Ask yourself, what are the 3 most important things you want to communicate through your logo? This will help you to navigate your design.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so look around for logos you like and make a note of what you like about them. This is important, because you will need to hire a graphic designer to design your logo. in general. Give all the examples you’ve collected along with a description of what you like/dislike to your graphic designer, and he/she should be able to build it from there. 

If you are thinking… well I don’t have a graphic designer… don’t worry. There are a lot of affordable options out there to get your logo created – you could use a freelancer on UpWork, or Fiverr or hire a small-boutique branding agency. 

Here is Alisha Chocha again to share some tips on what to provide the creator who is making your logo to ensure it turns out exactly how you want it.

If you’re comfortable with Adobe Illustrator, then you can take a stab at it yourself, 

You need to have your logo designed as a vector file so you can scale it as large or as small as you need without the loss of resolution and quality. The logo needs to stay super crisp. Take a look at how your logo prints too, because you will probably be adding your logo to your packaging. And yeah… packaging is another podcast topic we have in the works.

Skip to 29:16Once you have your logo completed, add it to “The Branding Document.” The branding document is typically a PDF that houses all your branding information like your logo, colors, fonts, etc. The idea is that you should be able to share your branding document with anyone, internally or externally. For example if you hire a marketing person or a marketing agency, you need to share your branding document with them so that they can be consistent with your brand across all marketing channels.  If you head over to YourMarketingPodcast/Episode4 you’ll be able to see an example of a branding document we’ve created. 

Let’s go over what you should include in a basic branding document:

• Logo – First thing on your branding document should be your logo. You should also include variations of your logo: black and white version of your logo, or other colors your logo can appear in, how it should look on dark background vs. white backgrounds, and any special spacing around the logo. Also, include your logo as a favicon. And if you don’t know what a Favicon is it’s the small little icon that appears on your website browser tab. 
• Colors. What are your primary and secondary colors? What is the feeling your brand wants to evoke? Different colors represent different emotions. A quick tip here is to head over to Pinterest and search color palettes. You’ll get a lot of color palettes that you get inspiration from. 
• Fonts. Your brand’s fonts or typography is a whole art form in and of itself. Font can definitely evoke an emotion. Just one tip from a marketer’s standpoint, pick a font that is easy to read. A beautiful font doesn’t mean anything if your customer struggles to read it. Choose a font for headlines, sub headlines, and paragraphs. Also, important to include which styles (Bold, regular, etc) and any unique spacing or weights.
• Imagery. What types of images will represent your brand? Use stock imagery to get some ideas. Think about what types of images resonate with your ideal customer. It might be helpful to start with the type of imagery you don’t want. We hear these types of comments from clients quite a bit – “I don’t like how the image is blurry”, “I don’t want how this man smiles, it looks fake” “I don’t like that image because the kid have mittens” – that’s actually a true story! It may be a good starting point to understand what you don’t like and then pivot away to what you do like.

Emily Rathmanner, the owner and founder of the women’s based and naturally sourced accessory line called Minga, shares with us her insights into creating beautiful visuals to represent your brand.

If you hire a branding agency, they should be able to put this branding document together for you, so you will always have it at your disposal. We will be sending a branding document sample as part of our email check-ins, if you’re signed up, so keep an eye out for that.

Danielle from DNM gives us her final thoughts on maintaining your brand image and story.

We covered a lot of information in this podcast, and hopefully, I didn’t overwhelm you with all the details. Don’t overthink it. Overthinking can paralyze you from getting your ecommerce site up. Just keep moving, don’t try to make it absolutely perfect because you will never launch then. You can always come back and perfect it after the launch. In Fact, that is Emily from Minga’s biggest piece of advice, and almost every business owner we’ve spoken to has shared the same.

In the next episode, we will go over how to develop and build your product.

Stay tuned. And if you’re just starting out on your eCommerce journey, we urge you to sign up at yourmarketingpodcast.com/letsgo to receive email alerts with check-ins. It’s so easy to get distracted and derailed. And we want to see you launch your eCommerce store and crush your goals! These email alerts will keep you on task and come with even more resources because we can’t cover everything on the podcast. Thank you for listening to yourmarketingpodcast. Until next time!