A brand is a company’s unique identity that differentiates it from its competitors. Popular brands include Coca-Cola, Apple Inc, Google, etc.
In today’s blog post, I’ll use step-by-step guidelines to show you how to create a branded dropshipping store.
First:
目录
What Is Branded Drop Shipping?
Branded dropshipping involves selling non-branded products purchased from suppliers without storing any inventory. Later, the drop shippers privately label the products and set up a product-themed branded store —usually online.
Why Should You Brand A Drop Shipping Store?
Some of the benefits of branding your dropshipping store are:
- Branding your dropshipping store can help you create a loyal customer base
- Branded dropshipping reduces the chances/rate of returns
- It can give you a competitive edge
- Higher profit margins, thanks to more sales from brand awareness
- Effective branded dropshipping ensures your business cultivates a positive brand name and image in your niche, helping keep your brand in audiences’ minds.
How to Brand Your Dropshipping Store
Courtesy: Emilia Blom, via Flickr
The eight steps below will help you brand your dropshipping store:
Step 1: Choose the right niche for branding
The first thing, and perhaps the most important thing, you should do is conduct niche research. Although this process can vary from one dropshipping business owner to the other, choosing the right niche for branding usually involves:
#: Conduct market research
Market research helps you identify a group of people with the same essential quality, interests, or needs as your brand. Moreover, conducting thorough market research ensures you can create a branding message that deeply resonates with your target audience —and that they can get behind, thereby becoming brand ambassadors.
#: Define your audience
Market and audience research are usually symbiotic. As you conduct market research, you will learn more about your target audience —and vice versa — which will inform which products you should take to the market to meet customer target needs and increase the effectiveness of your branding and marketing campaigns.
Choosing the right niche and defining your target audience demands that you know how your audience operates, from how they think, their desires, and problems. To understand your audience better, use various tools, including data analytic tools and reviews from online stores like AliExpress, Amazon, and various forums, which will make your branding plan more precise and defined, making it more effective.
#: Decide which product/service to offer
After conducting market research and identifying your target market, you can use the revelations learned about the market and audience to choose a product that can meet and fulfill market needs or demands.
For effective branding, it is usually good to have various niche products from which your customers can choose —offering a related line of products can increase customer retention.
After conducting niche, market, and audience research, you will have learned enough to move on to the next step of the process:
Step 2: Create Your Branded Store
The second step of the dropshipping store branding process involves creating your branded store, which usually involves the following and other related elements:
#: Create your mission and vision statement
Branding your dropshipping store also demands you craft a tangible mission and vision statement. Before drafting your statement, ask yourself questions like —and others like them:
- What does our store provide?
- Who are our customers?
- What ignites the passion behind starting the store?
The revelations you get from asking yourself these and other similar questions will help inform your brand story, given your intended brand positioning in the market in the long term.
#: Define your values and brand promise
To stand out as a brand and ensure that your branding strategy is effective, create impactful and meaningful core values customers can associate with your business.
Courtesy: Power Reviews
Once you figure out your core values, you can couple them with your niche/target audience/market research to make it easier to create your brand promise.
Your brand promise is something your customers will expect of you, and it can determine whether your customers will become loyal return customers.
Courtesy: RM Agency
Ensure you execute your brand promise through consistent customer service and product quality —and that the principles upon which your brand promise ride are solid and reflected in all your interactions with your customers.
#: Set your brand voice
Your brand voice should be relatable to your customers —and something they find appealing. For example, when your brand talks about an exciting new product, the tone of the branding and marketing copy should reflect this and differ from the tone you use to address customer complaints.
Know which language to use when to have the most positive impact on your customers at specific points of their interaction with your dropshipping brand or business.
Courtesy: CoSchedule
#: Align your product choice and services with your brand
Let’s say you have chosen electronics as your product. In this case, it’s in your best interest to ensure that your customers get the exact products you have listed on your online store. Make sure you deliver what you have promised your customers to create and foster trustworthiness between your customers and business.
Step 3: Design your dropshipping store
The third step is where the actual work begins because this step heralds the practical aspects of branding your dropshipping store in a manner that aligns with your niche, audience, and product research.
While the dropshipping store design process varies from one store to the other, the process fundamentally involves the following:
#: Choose a memorable brand name
On branding your business, do your best to pick a business/brand/product name that’s easy to memorize.
While you’re free to be as creative as possible with your brand name, it’s usually best to pick a brand name that customers can remember —and that clarifies your unique selling point.
#: Create a logo and a catchy slogan
You can use hatchful or Canva to create a unique logo that matches your brand. Adding a catchy slogan or tagline to your logo is advantageous because it makes your brand look appealing and creates curiosity in customers. Slogans are also more memorable.
#: Professional presentation
Giving your dropshipping store a professional, branded look includes the theme, high-quality images, a well-defined typeface, layout and composition, shape, color pallet, and topography.
The best way to have outstanding and unique images is to take the photographs yourself or pay for professional photography services. Doing this will add originality to your products, which can help differentiate your store from the many other dropshipping stores in your niche.
The fonts and colors you use for your online store should be bold and consistent. Ensure the colors go well with showcased products. No matter which colors or fonts you choose, replicate their use across all channels, including social media, to distinguish yourself.
Step 4: Differentiate Your Dropshipping Brand
In the fourth step, take care of:
#: Private label products
Private labeled products normally have high-profit margins, and the branded and added packaging customization increases their perceived value. After identifying niche products, differentiate yourself from other brands in the market by private labeling.
#: Custom packaging
Beyond selling private labeled products, you can also differentiate your store from the crowd by offering custom/branded packaging.
Most dropshipping suppliers also offer custom packaging services. For example, at Bestfulfill, you can ask your dropshipping representative to ensure that each fulfilled order has your business name, logo, and other brand items —like branded gift cards and thank you cards. This level of customization keeps your brand in the minds of its target audience.
#: Price
The essence of doing all this branding work is to give your brand products the perceived value that allows you to sell products at the price you feel they are worth. Price-wise, it’s best to use a pricing strategy driven by what you think the customer will pay, based on the perceived value created by your branding campaigns and plan.
#: Personalized customer service
Offering customers personalized shopping and customer service experiences is one of the best ways to differentiate your brand. Solve issues, including returns and delivery issues, promptly as they arise. This will lead to positive reviews and attract more customers.
Step 5: Choose A Selling Channel
There are two types of selling channels: Marketplaces and eCommerce platforms.
Marketplaces buy and sell in an existing platform, while eCommerce platforms help you build your business fast, with personalized features.
Shopify and Wix are examples of selling channels and the best options for creating a branded drop shipping store because they allow you to customize your store at levels a non-techie couldn’t?
Step 6: Choose a reliable supplier
Suppliers can make or break your brand, which is why you need to work with the best —and ONLY the best— by ensuring that your dropshipping supplier (s) offers:
#: High-quality products
Because you want to build a memorable, trusted brand name, focus on ensuring that your dropshipping supplier delivers good, high-quality products.
The higher your product quality, the likelier you are to get good reviews, which many people nowadays consider before purchasing a product.
#: Fast shipping time
Shipping time normally depends on the shipping region. It is advisable to work with a reliable dropshipping supplier who offers convenient and reliable worldwide shipping —free shipping preferred. A drop ship agent can be very good at sourcing suppliers and the best shipping method for you.
Step 7: Marketing your brand
Once you have everything we’ve discussed so far in place, you can focus on marketing your brand using:
#: Branded social media
To ensure you effectively brand your dropshipping store, use social media platforms to your advantage —use the social media platforms used by your target audience. For example, market your brand using Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter Ads, and write blogs about your products.
There’s don’t necessarily need to spend a lot of time or money there. You only need to be consistent; the more consistent you are, the more brand awareness you will create in your target audience.
If Ads don’t feel enough, try complementing your PPC add plan with a content marketing plan that employs various mediums like YouTube, your blog, or infographics.
#: Content Marketing
Content marketing is a good way of branding your dropshipping and creating value for your audience, which can lead to higher sales. An effective content marketing plan earns your business brand trust by making you a valuable and trusted source of industry-relevant information.
You can also create content by writing about your products. You will be surprised by how many people contact you after reading your blogs.
#: Email marketing
If you are using Shopify, it is good to get your buyer’s email address for later use to send marketing emails and even promotions —email marketing is one of the most effective branding/marketing mediums. You can also use your newsletter to share your brand vision, message, and product-related content.
Courtesy: Smart Insights
Step 8: Monitor, tweak, rinse, and repeat
The last step is monitoring, improving, and scaling your branding plan to grow your brand and business. Stay loyal and committed to everything you have defined about your brand so far —consistency is one of the secrets to branding success— but don’t be afraid to experiment and shelve branding ideas that are not working for you.
5 Effective Tips to Brand Your Drop Shipping Store
As you brand your dropshipping store, keep the following effective tips in mind:
#1: Tell a brand story
Do you want to make your brand’s mission, value, and voice relatable? The best way to do that is to share your story in an involving manner.
Neil Patel’s video below shows you how to share your brand story:
#2: Develop your brand’s core messages
Your core messages convey your brand’s underlying core values. It also acts as a guideline for your product copy, marketing campaign, social media posts, store content, and emails.
Consider the following three elements before creating core messages for your brand:
- Communication guidelines
- Key terms
- The tone of voice
#3: Create brand emotion
Brand emotion refers to creating a brand that provokes certain emotions.
Watch this video resource for more help on narrowing down your brand emotion:
#4: Develop an image for your drop shipping business
A brand image gives customers helps cement a positive brand image in your target audiences’ minds. It also ensures that customers know what to expect.
#5: Improve brand capital
Your brand capital includes human capital, funds, inventory, digital documents, and other assets. Improving each of these areas can make all the branding different.
Conclusion
There you have it, an 8 step by step guide on branding your dropshipping store. It’s fundamental to note that some steps may be more involved than others, and you should dedicate enough time to getting each step right before moving on to the next one.
Most importantly, remember the golden branding rule: consistency.
PRO TIP: If you’re stumped and struggling to create an effective branding plan for your store, you can reach out to Bestfulfill for branding services, including product branding.
