In addition to having customers for your brand, you also need to create fans for it. Your brand has a unique connection between your customers and your business. But till today, many eCommerce businesses aren’t aware of how your brand can be used effectively for driving business success.
Now, during this time of crisis, you mustn’t let your business fade away. You can use this downtime effectively to build your brand and also increase your fans, isn’t it something worth pondering upon?
The importance of your brand to your business
You need to understand why building your brand is essential. Well, your brand tends to be your competitive advantage as it helps in driving revenue for you. Also, it is probably one thing that cannot let other businesses rip you off. If you carefully invest in branding, then over time, you will get fruitful results.
After being hit by the global pandemic, business sales have decreased drastically. But there are some brands which are still going steady during this crisis. Do you know how they have managed to stand strong? That is because they have a strong reputation with their customers and the other potential customers in the marketplace.
It can be tough to invest in brand building when the times are normal. This is mainly because the prices are high, everything is so chaotic and the customer gets exploded. But in a downtime, this mostly isn’t the scenario and now is the right time to grab your opportunity. Remember: If you are running an eCommerce business, your opportunity to build your brand increases in this downtime.
Don’t get into an opportunistic mode – utilize the downtime at it’s best
It is not about being opportunistic during this crisis period but you need to make sure that every message that goes out is authentic and sensitive. During this pandemic time, your competition will be in a survival mode. While the cost of advertising is low the consumption of consumers will increase. With this, you get an opportunity to take your business online and reach it out to your audience.
During this time, the consumer confidence level is also low which implies that people won’t be willing to spend their money. While people are at home, they will consume more content generally. This again allows you to focus more on your branding through high-quality content.
During their distress, people have a lot of uncertainties in them. This is a great time, when you can show your audience they can trust you. So, if you can manage to offer certainty in a small area, people will give it a listening ear. This makes it relatively easier for you to speak to your audience as you know what is going on in their minds.
Times of disruption – how can you focus on brand building?
Finding genuine ways to connect with your audience while establishing your customer fans can be done in a few steps. Check out what we have listed out for you below.
What is your purpose?
Irrespective of crisis or not, you must know what is your business purpose? What makes your existence special? Establish your story, giving insights about your journey. Let people know how you have reached, where you are today! Determine what your potential customers can relate to and build an emotional connection with your audience.
Always be prepared before time
Hard times come uncalled for and they do not exempt anyone. Thriving through a downtime should start with preparations. You should have a healthy business so you have your investment ready in case the market crashes.
Curate genuine content: don’t use generic content, it won’t take you too far. While creating content for your audience, it needs to be valuable, helpful, and relatable to your audience. If you have some service or product that can help in relieving pain, bring it out genuinely. You can offer resources, donate, or even give discounts. This might not be able to drive a big revenue for you, but that’s okay. Seeing genuine help comes from a genuine place that will earn you long-term brand fans and loyalty.
Building your email list: you need to intentionally craft your email list and nurture your leads into strong relationships with your potential customers. Don’t aim at pushing your sales higher, take some time, and build your list carefully and then focus on building customer relationships.
Don’t wait until things get worse, it is the right time to take a massive step towards branding and building your fans. Businesses who haven’t thought about their survival are struggling right now during this pandemic but you should take an approach in the other direction. Thriving in the market doesn’t mean sales need to go up. It means, your business should use this downtime to make a step ahead and add some value to people’s lives.
