The prevalence of online shopping has transformed how people engage with retail stores. Over 20% of all worldwide retail sales are online purchases, and that number is poised to grow. For brick-and-mortar retailers, the focus on retail branding should uplift and enhance online offerings alongside the in-person experience. Essentially, retail branding asks the question: How can my business identity stand out among the crowd? As such, many retailers look to elements they can control, such as their brand’s visual identity, website, marketing campaigns, and other strategies to increase the effectiveness of their branding.
Retail branding is the strategy used by stores to differentiate themselves from competitors. For example, the trademark orange and pink bubble-letter font of Dunkin’ at a highway rest stop lets you know that reasonably-priced coffee and donuts await.
But the booming e-commerce landscape presents new challenges for retail branding. With more choices now than ever before and the ability to shop from the comfort of your sofa at all hours of the day, retailers are fighting to stand out in a digital sea of competition they never quite experienced before. How can smaller retailers leverage their branding to improve their e-commerce business?
In a world of endless options for the same product or service, branding helps to define your shop as a unique destination. The power of your brand can help sway a customer’s decision. In fact, 90% of customers cite brand loyalty as one of the reasons why they make a purchase. And when numerous alternatives are available faster or cheaper at the click of a button, that sense of brand loyalty will make a significant difference in your bottom line.
When it comes to your retail branding online, it’s not just about winning new customers in a crowded market — it’s bringing current ones into your online space, too. Identifying the reasons why customers come to your brick-and-mortar location provides a great foundation for shaping the e-commerce experience, whether that’s through stellar customer service, a wide array of products, or special deals that they could previously secure in person.
Now that you know all the good stuff that can come from retail branding, it’s time to apply these tactics to ensure a smooth experience on your website. These tips can help you get started on successfully implementing your brick-and-mortar retail branding experience in the digital arena.
Pivoting into the digital marketplace requires a strong foundation. If you think your brand could use a bit of a facelift, or if you never solidified how your brand’s visual identity and voice are carried out in the public eye, now is the time!
Before your e-commerce pivot, standardize your brand’s look and feel with a brand style guide. This is your go-to reference document that keeps your brand consistent, so anyone on your team (or outside your team) can accurately craft an effective social media post or draft a great email campaign in a way that’s visually similar to your in-store signage. Speaking of a brand style guide…
With retail transcending the physical and diving into digital, a retailer must maintain consistency on their e-commerce sites, too. While there will certainly be online exclusives or in-store only promotions, the overall experience of interacting with your brand should be similar both IRL and online. If you have minimal decor in your store, consider a minimally designed website. Alternatively, if your brick-and-mortar location is flush with pink hues and glitter, you’d do best to translate that design language into your online identity.
When you think of your brand, how do you feel, and how do you want others to feel about it? This is where color comes into play.
As we mentioned earlier in this guide, there’s a psychology behind the power of colors, and big brands know this. While we all have different associations with colors, there are some universal emotions that are closely linked to particular hues. For instance, brighter colors like yellow spark happier emotions, and red may invoke hunger. No wonder the McDonald’s Golden Arches feature yellow on a red background!
Similarly, colors come to be strongly tied to the brands that use them. Customers recognize the “T-Mobile fuschia,” for example, and T-Mobile utilizes the power of that association in both in-store and online applications. You’ll see this trademark bright pink on its signage inside stores and throughout the T-Mobile website — an impactful way to tie together both customer touchpoints.
When you’re a business owner, you have to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Now more than ever, customers do their homework before they buy. Even if they’re planning to buy a product in-store, they’ll likely Google it beforehand. Prepare for this eventuality by offering a content-rich experience on your website. Whether that’s through how-to videos for using your product, an FAQ page, or positive reviews about the product, using engaging content and search engine optimization (SEO) best practices on your website can decrease the possibility that a searcher buys from a competitor instead.
Launching your online store is just the beginning of the ways to implement your retail branding in the digital sphere. A slew of new and emerging technologies can reinforce your brand values and positioning online while standing right there in a brick-and-mortar location.
Two technologies already gaining traction in retail include:
Remember those name keychains that you’d get on vacation as a kid? You’d scour the rotating rack to find your name — or maybe you’d glance at the shelves in vain, knowing that your name was nowhere to be found. Similarly, consumers enjoy experiences even more when they’re personalized.
When Coca-Cola released the campaign “Share a Coke” in 2011, it added the novelty of personalization — the ability to see your name on a bottle or can of Coke. Of course, because it’s all about sharing, you want to get a bottle for your friend with their name on it, too. And thanks to its website, if a customer can’t find their name or a friend’s name on a label in the store, they can customize a label, expanding the possibilities beyond the limitations of store shelves.
Take inspiration from Coke and make it personal. While you may not need to offer every name in the world on a soda label, you can take simple steps to personalize the experience with your customers. Begin with email marketing campaigns or text message marketing campaigns that address your customer by the name they provided at sign-up.
With the rapid adoption of e-commerce in sectors large and small alike, retail brands have an opportunity to shine — even among a sea of competitors. One surefire way to retain brand loyalty and continue to reach new customers is to develop consistent branding and explore ways to bring the experience of your company into an online experience. Whether you continue your phenomenal customer service online or you want to introduce digital experiences in your shop, on-point branding is essential to ensuring your efforts stick. If you need help updating your brand’s identity for the web, you might want to check out Namecheap’s Visual Maker suite, which helps to simplify branding across website design, logo design, and even business card creation.
Branding has a wider scope and longer time frame compared to merchandising. A company’s brand represents the entire organization’s mission and values and stays consistent for years before any significant changes are made. Merchandising, on the other hand, is focused on promoting and selling specific products. Merchandising strategies typically change often to coincide with promotions, trends, and seasonal changes.
Some of the key principles for successful retail branding include consistency, differentiation, and authenticity. For consistency, develop a recognizable, unchanging look and feel to build brand recognition and loyalty. Differentiation involves making sure your brand stands out from the competition, while authenticity is important for creating a strong brand identity that your target audience can connect with.
McDonald’s is a great example of retail branding. The Golden Arches logo is recognizable around the world, and the experience at this fast-food chain is familiar no matter which location you visit. The development of signature products like the Big Mac also helps to cement the brand as distinctive and memorable among its competitors.
Retail branding is a branding strategy for an entire store, while product branding only applies to the individual items sold in those stores. Retail branding involves the entire experience in a store’s brick-and-mortar location or on their ecommerce website, while product branding focuses on specifics like naming, features, and packaging.
In a brick-and-mortar store, retail branding helps to create a specific atmosphere for shoppers. This can include signage, product displays, music, lighting, scents, and store layout. It also extends to the way employees are trained to interact with customers.
From voice to visuals, here’s how to create branding that everyone will recognize.
guideRead now
12 minsguideRead now11 minsguideRead now9 minsguideRead now9 minsguideRead now12 minsguideRead now11 minsguideRead now10 minsguideRead now12 minsguideRead now11 minsguideRead now12 minsguideRead now10 minsguideRead now12 mins
Need help? We're always here for you.