10 Steps: Building Your (E-Com) Brand
The cultivation of many steps exist between the two most important synergies of building a brand; the inspiration and the work. After you’ve been inspired and before overseeing the daily operation of an online store, there are a number of things you’ll want to think through. In all reality when you think of the ongoing commitment needed to produce in any online business, the basics of building a business can very much create the foundation and procedures for operating one.
If you’re new to e-commerce operations or marketing this list of 10 Steps To Building An E-com Brand will be the first of many (e-comm-er’s love a good list!) and if you’re true to this then consider this affirmation, confirmation or both!
Image Credit: Unsplash/@visuals
10 Steps to Building An E-commerce Brand
Define your Target Audience - You have a great idea, a great product, a great service but you’ll need to be clear about who you’re selling it to. Defining your ideal customer will help you outline clear strategies to find and market to the perfect person ready to buy them.
Establish your Inventory - It’s hard to sell something you don’t have and reap the benefits of an engaged audience if you aren’t providing what they need. To launch and maintain a successful e-commerce brand you’ll need to plan and forecast your product assortment keeping in mind product categories, seasons and attributes unique to your brand. Don’t forget to manage and monitor your Cost of Goods.
Create a Pricing strategy - A successful e-commere brand has a flexible pricing strategy that can exist at the brand, category and product level and takes into account sales, new releases, and promotional offers. Your pricing stratgy will allow you to move inventory at a rate that meets the needs of your sales goals, warehousing requirements, new deliveries or your desire to keep a constant flow of new and current styles in stock.
Outline your Sales goals - If you aren’t considering how much money you want to make, clearly you’re in it for thrills. Running a business costs money so no matter how small or big, break even or breaking records setting a goal for units sold, revenue received or sell thru rates for a specific category or collection will help you become more specific and intentional about your time and effort. Your goals should be managed with your inventory strategy and marketing efforts in mind.
Build marketing lists - The power of segmentation will ensure you are sending the right message to the right audience and getting the most out of your resources such as sending email to the audience most likely to convert and sponsoring the content that drives sales. Understanding the power of segmenting the customers you’ve earned as your business grows will give you more freedom to communicate messaging that matter and translate to money, honey.
Sell Your Products + Promote Your Brand - Unfortunately, unless you’ve already reached celebrity status, if you build it - they don’t just come. Sorry. In fact, with so many new brands emerging every day and more and more consumers like us becoming brand owners (like you!) it’s more important than ever to invest time and resources into being seen and by an audience that makes sense to your brand. There are many options to market your e-commerce brand including channels that are offline. Options are limitless when you’re in a lane of your own.
Create a promotional strategy - Maybe your luxury brand won’t need a promotional strategy that calls for extreme markdowns or clearance deals but acknowledging key times of the year where customers are looking for deals will help you leverage these moments to merchandise your site, offer discount codes, create relevant content, make site updates and of course - sell more inventory!
Release new inventory - Unless you’re building a brand that has a set product offering, you’ll want to be sure you’re always offering new energy and inviting your customers to experience your brand all over again (and stock up on something they’ve loved before) Having new inventory is another chance to sell product, remind your customers of your brands unique style, position or aesthetic and ultimately, another opportunity to give customers what they want. Don’t allow your brand to struggle because a lack of proper planning around new product releases.
Analyze your performance! If you don’t know what you did, you won’t know what needs to be done. Numbers never lie (unless you tell them to) and consistently analyzing your performance will help you see where you need to make honest changes. Your website data and product performance are only a few of the areas that need to be reviewed often, but don't forget the importance of reviewing and collecting customer feedback, product reviews and analyzing shipping windows. Doing so on a regular basis will help you make decisions about top sellers, product categories that may need support, markdowns and changes to your ecommerce operations.
Do it again and again - There’s no better way to prove your business model and promote your business than by doing just that - prove your business model and promote YOUR BUSINESS! It’s important to excute your strategy so you can adjust it, and even better confirm your plans work and the only thing needed is to scale, UP. Believing in your power requires the power of consistency!
Need support with your e-commerce business strategy? I’d be honored to support you. Schedule a FREE consultation here.