If you are reading this, you have decided to launch an eCommerce site, congratulations! A challenging yet enriching journey lies ahead of you. In addition to finding the right products to sell, one of the critical factors to your success is your branding. When it comes to branding, there are two aspects, your brand positioning and then the graphic design. This article will focus on how to create and manage your eCommerce brand assets.
Your Logo Sets the Tone
When you decide on a logo concept, you don’t just choose a design representing your company name, but you set the foundation for your entire brand appearance. Many eCommerce entrepreneurs rush through this step only to upload it to their website and get going. Your logo comes first and should inform the design choices for your website. Make sure you take your time to carefully choose your logo font(s), color scheme, graphic, and layout. It’s best to try a few different concepts and then gather feedback from your business partners and other stakeholders. You can either hire a graphic designer to create a few different designs or use a free tool like the GraphicSprings Logo Maker.
Branding Your eCommerce Store
Given that you will be operating an eCommerce shop, the next natural step is to publish a fantastic online store. These days there are countless options available in eCommerce templates if you don’t want to do a custom build. Either route is beautiful as long as it meets your requirements, such as payment processing, inventory tracking, CMS, shopping cart, etc. After all, the prettiest branding doesn’t benefit you if you can’t process orders. As mentioned above, the logo should give you a visual direction for the website. Incorporate the primary and secondary logo colors across your website. Pro-tip, find out the exact file dimensions for your eCommerce CMS before uploading your logo. This will guarantee your logo will be high-resolution.
Be Consistent Across Your Social Media Channels
Once you have your eCommerce site in place, you need a way to promote it. Of course, there are many ways to drive traffic to your website, such as PPC ads, affiliate programs, etc. One channel almost every successful eCommerce site leverages is social media. Social media can be a handy sales tool. However, many eCommerce entrepreneurs make a mistake because there is a disconnect between their website and social media art. It’s essential to be very consistent in your design choices when setting up your social media accounts or creating posts. In addition to incorporating your logo, you should implement the logo colors as accents across your posts. Using the same messaging across your website and social media is also crucial.
Develop Matching Promotional Material
Depending on the nature of your products and your advertising strategy, you’ll need additional promotional material. Your eCommerce site and social media channels will most likely be your most-used brand assets. With those in place, it’s time to shift your attention to business cards, flyers, banner ads, pitch decks, and anything else you might need to promote your store. No matter which graphic design you create, it should be consistent with the rest of your brand, i.e., incorporate your logo and use the logo color scheme to inform your accent color choices.
Beyond Logo Colors
The goal of the branding exercise is to make your business instantly recognizable. Of course, a pleasant customer experience is number one, but you can also help build recognition via smart visual triggers. In addition to consistent messaging and brand color usage, you should also be selective and steady in the icons you use across your branding material, as well as imagery and fonts.
Conclusion
Launching and managing an eCommerce site can be intimidating. You have many decisions to make, like which products to stock, how to handle shipping, and which payment processor to use. Basing your entire branding design direction off your logo will make your life a lot easier. It will give your brand a professional and consistent look. On top of that, with a clear design direction, you have fewer design-related decisions to make, so you can focus your energy on growing your eCommerce site.
How to Launch and Manage Your eCommerce Brand
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