Branding is enormously important to the success of your business. Branding isn’t just your logo and your packaging, although that’s hugely important – it’s the overall effort you put into creating your entire customer experience, everything people see, read, touch, hear and feel about your brand needs to be well crafted.
People are wired to pick beautiful things over ordinary things, and you’re competing with brands who invest in making their brands beautiful. Hire professional designers, photographers and copywriters with a strong track record of creating successful brands.
Bad photography will kill your brand faster than anything. Food photography is extremely difficult – food looks really gross unless it’s photographed properly. This also applies to photos of your packaging – if your photos are blurry or sloppy, the message to customers is that your brand and your products are sloppy. You’re competing against brands that make a big effort to create beautiful photos of their products, often with beautiful people enjoying the product. People are just wired to pick beautiful over ordinary.
First impressions really matter. Your logo and packaging tell a story and send a signal to people about what to expect – is your product wild and sexy, or is it sophisticated and chill, or is it earthy and natural? People are overwhelmed with options, so you have to quickly get their attention and give them a strong vibe of what you’re all about through your logo, packaging and photography.
Your brand story is why you do what you do. People want to know. And they will build a stronger relationship with your brand if your story and your purpose aligns with the world they want to live in. Having an interesting story, told with a distinct personality, written in a compelling way, makes a lasting impression.
"With Upstock, it allows us to stick to our brand values. One of the key objectives of our wholesale program is to provide exceptional service to our partners. Our coffee is the hero, and we want to be able to share that story."
Does your site work well on mobile? Is it super obvious how people can order your product? Does your site have all the basics like your contact details, beautiful photos of your products, your brand story, links to your social media accounts? Is it easy to use?
Are your emails easy to read on mobile? Do you have catchy subject lines and interesting content? Is it super obvious how people can order your product? What about your email signature – does it have a link to order from your Upstock catalogue?
Do you share interesting content, not just about you and your brand, but things your customers are interested in? Is your photography beautiful? Is it super obvious how people can order your product?
In the long run, the quality of your product matters most. A great brand can get you attention, but to really succeed your product needs to deliver what people want. It’s possible to succeed with a poor product and a poor brand, but you’ll be far more successful having both a great product and a great brand.
Your customer experience is the culmination of all of the above, the way every detail is handled with attention and care, especially when things go sideways and customers need you to fix a problem. Knowing they can count on you builds an even stronger relationship and loyalty.
