Apple offers GREAT user experience on their website, partly due to their incredibly strong branding strategy. Here’s a quick way to do the same for your Ecommerce store.
Even if you only sell nuts and bolts, there is a way to make consumers love your brand. Great branding leads to loyal customers. Loyal customers will recommend your brand to others, talk about your company and – here’s the Holy Grail of branding – be willing to pay a premium for your products.
In other words, there is a way to be more like Apple.
They key to success along these lines is finding how your product satisfies a primal urge in your customers. Figure that out, then work backwards to create a company culture that’s all about living a lifestyle where that need is fulfilled. Easy, no?
For Good UX, Start With Good Branding
Here’s an example of what to do. Let’s say you do actually sell nuts and bolts. The first instinct of the non-UX marketer is to stress how many types of bolts customers can buy. Either that, or they stress how cheap their bolts are, or how fast their shipping might be.
That’s a rather flat approach to marketing. It’s not the worst, but it’s not exactly fulfilling a basic human need, either.
What you’re after is a branding strategy that reflects a strong company culture, personality, approach towards life and how the product symbolizes the life people will have when they buy it.
To create this, think of the primal urge your product satisfies for consumers.
Good Branding is Centered Around Primal Urges
For your customers, the deeper urge you’ll aim to satisfy will vary based on what you sell. Whatever it is, however, you can bet it’s based on one of the “Life Force 8”.
These eight primal desires defined by Drew Eric Whitman in his classic marketing book Cashvertising include survival, social approval, comfortable living conditions, superiority, and freedom from danger.
Tap into one of these and you’re well on your way to creating a quick branding strategy.
A Quick Way to Create a Branding Strategy for Your Ecommerce Site
But what primal urge is satisfied by nuts and bolts?
How about showing your visitors that your bolts will help them have a great summer? By ordering from your site, which offers free shipping, high quality bolts that won’t corrode, and a fast & easy way to search your site for exactly the right bolts, they’ll get their job done faster and it will last longer, too. More time for enjoying the summer.
Now, your website has a branding theme: more time for the good things in life because purchasing from your company offers all those benefits.
From that point, it’s just a matter of designing your Ecommerce site so all those things are actually true. Here are a few ways to get started:
- Your home page should be clear, clean, and free of distractions so the user can get right to ordering the bolts they need.
- Your search filters should be functional and helpful.
- Your product pages should give large, clear pictures of your products.
- Your call-to-action buttons (“Add to Cart”, probably) should be highly visible.
- There should be no distractions during checkout.
- Shipping terms should be clearly stated every step of the way.
See? Visitors find what they need, they’re reminded of what’s really important by branding depicting customers enjoying summertime activities, and their shopping experience is quick and easy… in short, their UX has been exceptional and you’ve won yet another loyal customer.
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