What Comes First: Branding or Transactional Content?
June 30, 2016
This is a common – and very good – question for new Shopify stores. What is do you want to do first, create branding content or advertise your direct response sales copy?
The short answer is do both.
But resources don’t always allow, so other considerations come into play.
The biggest is whether or not you can support a transactional campaign without having brand awareness.
If, for example, you are selling in a commodity market with a competitive price advantage, you have the leverage to directly go into a direct-response sales campaign. Get your products out there and start taking market share.
However, if you are pushing a new innovation, you may have to educate consumers about the value you offer and build trust around your brand. In this case, a direct-response ad campaign won’t be as effective because you won’t have a customer base that understands the value of your offering.
In the second case, you may need to undertake a substantial branding campaign to create awareness, educate, and build trust with prospective buyers.
This question is so critical because these two strategies – especially in today’s online selling environments – are distinctly different.
For ecommerce ready to advertise and complete transactions in an established vertical, you’re creating conversion-based sales material. The objective is completed transactions. You work aggressively on paid search marketing, remarketing, and some social media advertising. Your content is conversion focused.
And most of all, you’re targeting a different audience entirely. This is a ready-to-buy audience who understands the value of your products. They will be willing to interact with sales-driven content and move through to conversion.
When branding a new innovation, you have to connect with and learn about the audience you hope to eventually sell to. The time-frame for this campaign is much longer, and ROI goals are totally different.
You’ll need to create your reach and educate your target audience. Furthermore, you need to make an emotional, trustworthy connection that convinces people you’re legitimate.
Some businesses selling a new innovations brand their business for years before it gets to the point that direct advertising will pay-off.
What underlies all this is the reality that there is a distinct difference between marketing and advertising in online commerce. The biggest mistake of all is to not realize this and lump your efforts into a disorganized, overlapping campaign.
To get ROI, you have to understand what you’re investing in. Ultimately most successful ecommerce businesses both brand market and advertise online. When both compliment each other, ROI is at its highest.
But know where you’re at right as you start your Shopify theme design. Some store owners are freaking-out when they have no sales in six months, but for others that exactly what they expected.
You can guess which one will be in business a year later.