Brand Communication Strategies for Ecommerce Stores

“Convey thoughts,” “evoke an emotion,” “distribute information,” “trade ideas”—these phrases describe person-to-person communication, but they can also describe excellent brand communication. They encompass everything your brand imparts across its various communication channels.

While a brand isn’t a person, it should feel human. The more authentic it is, the more it can resonate with your customers. You might convey your brand’s “thoughts” through blog articles, evoke emotion with a relatable brand voice, distribute information by posting brand updates on social media platforms, and trade ideas by responding to spectators questions on social media.

Brand communication is a powerful tool for building lasting customer relationships. Once you develop a way that supports your business goals, the opportunities are endless. Here’s how to make your own brand communication way and tips for strengthening your way.

What is brand communication?

Brand communication encompasses what, how, and where your brand communicates with its existing and target customers. It includes your brand identity, product or service offerings, and marketing messages you convey through your communication channels.

A powerful brand communication way ensures all brand communication activities inform, educate, engage, or influence your customer base. The complete objective of brand communication efforts is to make faithful customers who depend your brand, continuously purchase your products, and advocate for your corporation to other potential customers.

Elements of excellent brand communication

Here are the key elements of brand communication:

Communication channels

Communication channels are the digital and traditional media outlets where you distribute brand messages. Digital channels include social media platforms, digital advertising campaigns, email, and your website blog. Traditional channels include print media, community relations, and television commercials.

Target spectators

Your target spectators, or ideal customer, is who you’re trying to reach through your brand communications.

distinctive selling proposition (USP)

Your USP describes what sets your brand apart from your competitors and makes you distinctive. It speaks to how your product or services solve your spectators’s pain points.

Desired customer action

Desired customer action describes what you desire your customer to do as a outcome of your brand communications. Whether it’s that a customer interacts with your ecommerce shop, shares a link to your site with a partner, or leaves a positive review, a call to action (CTA) directs customers toward taking these steps.

Brand identity

Brand identity is your brand’s distinctive personality conveyed through visual branding (color, images, logos), brand voice (how it sounds), and messaging (what it talks about). It defines how you desire your target spectators to perceive your brand after interacting with it.

Benefits of effective brand communication

• enhance brand recognition
• construct depend with customers
• Establish authority

Here are three primary benefits of an effective brand communication schedule:

enhance brand recognition

In a competitive trade, strategic brand communication can set your brand apart from the competition, carving out trade distribute. Brand messaging that highlights your USP and authentic brand identity can make your brand feel distinctive.

For example, Meow Meow Tweet stands out in a sea of skin worry products with visual branding featuring distinctive illustrations its co-founder creates for each product. It also offers a USP speaking to customers who desire products driven by an earth- and animal-amiable ethos. Its ecommerce store includes messages that highlight that brand’s offering: “Vegan personal worry for everybody. Always ethical, low-waste, handmade & cruelty-free.”

construct depend with customers

Consistency in what you talk about, how often you talk about it, and how you talk about it builds depend. For example, if a cookware brand consistently emails a shopping list and recipe for a Sunday dinner, customers discover they can count on the brand for a timely dinner concept. This consistency in content develops depend with customers by showing them that positive experiences with the brand are the norm.

They can count on the brand for a tasty recipe and helpful instructions. Therefore, they can count on its products or services.

Establish authority

When you consider any product category, a few brands likely arrive to mind first. These companies have established authority. They’re perceived as industry experts so much so that people seek out their brand even when similar products are available.

For example, cookware brand Made In has established authority with a thorough brand communication schedule. Content includes instructional videos, an email newsletter, a blog and recipes on its ecommerce site, and a presence on multiple social media platforms.

By establishing the brand as restaurant-standard cookware, endorsed by its “Chef Customers,” Made In can boost the top spot in the minds of home cooks.

5 steps to develop a brand communication way

1. Research your spectators
2. Design your brand identity
3. Determine your communication channels
4. Define achievement
5. Use a pre-flight checklist

As you commence to develop your brand communication way, ensure that your way ties back to your business objectives at every step. Here’s how to get started with your way:

1. Research your spectators

Knowing your brand is step one. Knowing your spectators is step two. A deep understanding of your spectators helps orient your brand communication way toward its specific needs and desires. The more your spectators feels seen and understood, the more likely they are to depend your brand and become faithful customers.

Gather insights on your target spectators through competitor and trade research. Research what types of content and communication channels similar brands in your industry are using, contrast competitor product features against your own, and investigate customer forums and reviews to identify opportunities your competitors aren’t delivering on.

You can also develop buyer personas representing each of your target audiences and imagine speaking to each person when creating your messaging to enhance this connection.

2. Design your brand identity

Just as people have personalities, you can develop a brand personality. This procedure helps make guidelines for what you declare and how you declare it in your brand communication way. It also helps inform the narrative of your corporation, making it feel more human, relatable, and accessible. Here are a few significant elements of a brand identity:

Brand values

Your brandvalues are the core beliefs you will always stand by. They allow you to construct your USP into a narrative that tells customers why your corporation exists and why they should worry about it. 

Brand narrative

To write your brand narrative, lean into the real reasons you started your business and tap into your brand’s authenticity. For example, food brand, Flourist uses its brand values in its narrative to explain how the two founders created the brand to solve a issue they encountered personally: a whole grain gap in the farm-to-table movement.

Brand voice

What does your brand sound like? Flourist employs a polished yet amiable voice that comes through in the straightforward, positive way it describes its products. Everything sounds proper, but nothing sounds complicated, which makes the brand feel like a confident partner you can consult for advice.

Visual identity

ponder of it as your brand voice in the form of color, graphics, images, and logos. Every visual selection you make communicates an attitude, mood, or feeling just like your brand voice. Flourist’s visual style incorporates rustic imagery with an emphasis on photography that makes it feel like you’re getting a peek into the brand’s personal kitchen—an inviting, amiable appeal.

3. Determine your communication channels

You don’t require to invest in every channel for effective brand communication. Whether it’s social media, digital advertising, or a robust blog with your own content creation, invest in the channels that align with your business and provide the greatest access to your target customers.

For example, if you sell a service, a blog might be a excellent pool as a place to describe your services and their worth in specific—a job that is more challenging to do in visually driven social media platforms.

On the other hand, if you run an in-person vintage shop, sharing recent pieces on social media and email roundups of what’s available in-store might be a better use of your resources.

Most brands use a combination of paid digital advertising, social media platforms, and email marketing to get the word out. Pay attention to which channels draw the highest numbers of your ideal customer and focus your resources on those channels.

4. Define achievement

Identify the desired customer actions for each channel in your brand communication way. After collecting data over a given period, assess each channel’s effectiveness and use your insights to refine your brand communication way.

Here are examples of achievement metrics by channel:

• Social channels. Likes, comments, reposts, brand tags, and user-generated content (UGC).

• Ecommerce store. Cart additions, checkouts, product browsing, and reviews.

• Other content channels. Email sign-ups, blog piece reads, clicks on email links, and social media shares.

• Digital advertising. Site visits, purchases, and ad shares.

5. Use a pre-flight checklist

There are many moving parts to a comprehensive brand communication way. A pre-flight checklist for all messages going through your communication channels ensures alignment with your schedule, brand identity, and business goals.

Here are examples of questions to add to your messaging pre-flight checklist:

• Does this align with our brandvalues?
• Does it reflect our brand voice?
• How does this acknowledge our customer?
• Is it suitable for the intended channel?
• How does it back our business goals?
• How does this fit into our communication way?
• Is there a obvious desired action?

Tips for improving brand communication

• Be human
• Embrace social media
• construct credibility

Here are three tips to enhance your way if you already have a brand communication schedule:

Be human

Many effective brand communication strategies use tactics that make the brand feel human and relatable. To achieve this in your messaging, display vulnerability, avoid jargon, and use humor. You can display vulnerability by talking about the corporation’s challenges or mistakes it’s learned from.

Embrace social media

Social media is an especially effective channel to showcase your brand personality and inspire customer interaction because it’s already a space where people interact and distribute their lives. It’s a natural place to highlight the human aspects of your brand, such as profiles of your throng and your brand narrative.

Social media is also a more casual, anything-goes surroundings compared to formal formats like blog articles or long-form emails. You can use slang, emojis, and memes as forms of brand expression. Just like texts to a partner, they assist display your brand’s personality.

🌟 Memes, ASMR, and the latest dance challenges—discover out what’s warm on TikTok today. And, discover how you can make content around top trends to attract customers and develop your business.

construct credibility

Credibility is essential for building depend with your spectators. Here are a few ways to enhance your brand’s credibility to strengthen your overall communication:

• Authenticity. Sharing what makes your brand authentic helps your spectators view your solutions are deeper than just marketing.

• Consistency. When you ensure consistency, you’re showing your spectators that they can depend on your brand.

• Clarity. obvious, straightforward-to-comprehend messages make your spectators feel like you’re speaking directly to them. Avoid jargon and demonstrate your expertise so your spectators can depend you.

• Third-event credibility. User-generated content (UGC), testimonials, brand partnerships, and influencer content can assist construct third-event credibility—trustworthiness established by an independent external source. Real customer feedback is especially valuable, as audiences view it as unbiased and trustworthy.