Build Your Branding Strategy For Fashion eCommerce
Updated on October 31, 2022 in Marketing by Nishant Shrimali
Let me start this blog by asking one simple question before we dive into this blog.
What is a brand?
Is it a name, a logo, an experience, or something else?
According to the director of eBay, Scott D. Cook, “A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – It is what consumers tell each other it is.”
Branding strategy for fashion eCommerce is about being the buzz among the customer. It’s about everything that pulls the eye and keeps a customer hooked to your brand.
In my understanding, branding strategy for fashion eCommerce is the ultimate USP that makes you desirable in the eye of your audience.
But can anyone achieve this status? Yes. Anyone can and already does have a brand around them. In this article, you’ll learn how to frame it right.
If that’s something that interests you, let us get started right away,
5 Pillars of Branding Strategy for fashion eCommerce
In order to create a perfect branding strategy for fashion eCommerce, you’ll first need to build these 5 core pillars for your fashion brand.
Namely, these pillars of branding are –
- Identity
- Story
- Values
- Perception
- Brand Experience
Identity – who you are
It is the first step to creating a branding strategy for fashion eCommerce. And generally, it is a very simple answer.
If you are selling clothes online, you are a fashion eCommerce. If you rent clothes online, you are a rental eCommerce.
Identity is your core pillar around which you build your strategy, USP, and business techniques.
Story – what you say
It is about the message you put out for as a brand. For Nike, it’s about taking action. How can we figure that out? through the tagline – “Just Do It”.
A story shall not always be your tagline. It can be the material you use, the things your brand is involved in, people your brand caters and more.
There is one thing that you must remember when creating a branding strategy for fashion eCommerce. The story of your brand is what you put out for your audience in order to build a connection with your brand.
Values – what you stand for
If your story pillar is about telling, the values pillar is all about doing. As a brand, what actions do take? What do you stand for beyond just selling products?
It can be a cause, a mission, something little or huge that defines what kind of brand you are.
For fashion brands, it can be sustainability, reusable clothing, gender rights, equality, or any mission that the brands take a stand for.
Perception – how people see you
In branding, perception is the most powerful pillar. While it holds the most powerful position, it is dependent on every other pillar of your branding strategy for fashion eCommerce.
More specifically, it’s how people will describe you to their friends. For example, Everlane is well established and followed fashion brand in the world.
But recently when the news of racism spread within the culture, the brand had to face serious backlash from the customers.
This itself shows that it’s not just about what you sell and its quality. It’s about the public image, the perception of your customer that your brand has.
Brand experience – how do you look
And lastly, it is about the experience with your brand.
The font you use, the product images you display, the style guide you follow, the description you write, delivery, and every little and huge interaction between the brand and customer.
Here, the goal is to be unique and to stand out from the crowd.
A Must Read: What Is Fashion Marketing? The Ultimate Strategy With 9 Best Ways
How to create a perfect branding strategy for fashion brands?
Creating a branding strategy for fashion brands can often seem challenging at first. There are some serious questions that you may come across as a brand strategist like:
- What is the brand’s message?
- How to make this fashion brand stand out from others?
- What visual cues can I use in fashion branding?
The answer to that can’t be straightforward. And I won’t even try to put out some random steps to fill up your mind.
Here are some principles and guidelines that creative directors and brand strategists are using in the real world to create a perfect branding strategy for fashion eCommerce.
The Brand Concept
A brand concept is a raw truth behind the brand. And it includes everything. What was the idea behind the brand? Who started it and what were the initial steps?
In addition to these questions, it’s about the overall origin of the idea, product, designer, cause, language, and everything behind it.
For some brands, this concept can be the driving force for all the products. For example, Louis Vuitton is a luxury brand dealing in various kinds of fashion products and accessories.
But one kind of product that every fashion enthusiast wants is the Louis Vuitton bag. In addition to this, the color dark-brown is also often associated with the brand.
For you, it might not be a product, but it can be anything that puts your flag deep within the ground. Another example would be the Tiffiny & Co. They are a luxury jewelry and accessories brand. But the whole brand is distinct from others because of the use of particular color in their branding – Tiffany Blue.
Various other factors make Tiffiny & Co. the brand it is, but this concept of color does play a huge role in creating a perfect branding strategy for fashion brands.
Creating Brand Identity
Now that your concept is ready, it’s time to give it composition and a human touch to make it real.
What is brand identity?
Brand identity is the flag of your brand. It is how people know you, remember you, and distinguish your fashion brand from others.
Your branding strategy for fashion eCommerce depends on your identity. So make sure you put a lot of thought into it.
In order to create a perfect brand identity, think of your brand as a living human in front of you.
Now note down the characteristics of this human, the emotions and values you think it has. The more particular you are the better your identity will you be able to create.
The same identity will reflect on every aspect of your brand. Like in the case of Alala Style. It is an athleisure brand that reflects positivity, activity, and relaxation as a brand identity. Hence we can trace this all over their site.
Work On Foundation
Foundation is everything that your customer sees and experiences with your brand. It is your website design, your logo, your product image editing, delivery system, and everything else that counts as experience.
And when it comes to creating a branding strategy for fashion eCommerce, it’s all about being unique.
A very interesting example is Size.ca. It is a sneaker and clothing eCommerce that represents a very young vibe to it.
And by the way, what’s the first thing a salesperson might ask you when you are looking to buy good sneakers?
“Size?” That’s what the whole website is all around. Be it their logo, website design, colors as well as product photography. You’ll see that they consistently follow a lively style and integrate “?” in their style.
For many people, branding strategies for fashion eCommerce start from the foundation. But now you know, it’s a much later part of the process.
Also, this is a stage that keeps evolving. While the concept and identity of the brand stay the same, you can tweak your foundation if the time demands.
Some known examples among the popular are brands such Christian Dior SE and Yves Saint Laurent. Now they are known just as DIOR and Saint Laurent.
Building Awareness
You have your concept, your identity, and your foundation ready. It’s time to aware people of your brand and it is the point that you’ll have to sew together.
Be it your social media marketing, content marketing, PR, or influencer marketing. Everything about creating brand awareness will depend on the first three steps we discussed to create a perfect branding strategy for fashion eCommerce.
At this stage, you have two goals
- Recognition
- Recall
You have to build a brand awareness that people can easily recognize without putting any thought into it. It’s about making the brand so fluid and memorable that people can instantly recognize you.
The best example is the logo below.
The Nike logo needs no explanation at all and we both recognize it even if it is just the swoosh.
There is one goal of creating a branding strategy for fashion eCommerce. To achieve a recognition that people can see something related to the brand, and recognize who it belongs to.
But what about when they need something and can’t see your logo or your brand association anywhere? That is when your brand recall is helpful.
It’s about creating awareness around a product, color, or experience that people can recall your brand very easily.
- For sneakers, it’s Nike, & Adidas
- For fast fashion, it’s Zara & H&M
- In watches, you’ll find Rolex & Patek Philippe
- For clothing related to yoga & stretching, Lululemons
These brands are some great examples that have created a strong presence around a category or product. And whenever someone is thinking of products in their category, they tend to look at their catalogs at least once. Something that we want out of every branding strategy for fashion eCommerce.
Positioning The Brand
The last stage of creating a perfect branding strategy for fashion eCommerce is positioning it right. Just ask, How do you want people to remember your brand?
Let us compare the brand positioning of two brands – Levis and Louis Vuitton to understand it better.
Well, there is no direct comparison is both the brands. One is known for the fun-loving comfortable jeans and the other is known for high-end luxury clothing.
But that’s what positioning is. While both these brands have the potential to switch their market and present themselves as their opposites, they won’t do that.
While both these brands are clothing brands at their core, their position in the market creates a complete diversity of the audience.
As a fashion brand and creative strategies, you must secure a position in your market. Rather than trying to be like a particular brand, or competing with other brands, the brand is on a different pedestal.
Final Thoughts
I wish there was a step-by-step roadmap to create a branding strategy for fashion eCommerce. But that’s the fun part. It is about creating an original brand that people would love to remember and share.
And as we saw in all the examples above, branding strategy for fashion eCommerce is about standing out from the crowd and giving a clean, unique experience to the customer.
One way to reflect all this is through professional product image editing. Every eCommerce on the web gets its product image editing. But to stand out as a brand, you need consistency and accuracy in your product images.
In addition to this, you need a style guide that shares how your product will be represented. To get all this, you need a product photo editing service like PixelPhant.
PixelPhant is a leading product photo editing service that works with eCommerce and fashion brands across the globe to deliver expert post-production services. If you are looking to scale your product presentation, start with the PixelPhant free trial now.
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