Brand Building: How to Create a Marketing Blueprint for e-Commerce

By Lisa Clift Cedrone

The Internet is a huge marketplace—with global e-commerce sales expected to reach $4 trillion annually by 20201—and launching a new online store into this sea of opportunity requires planning and focus to reach the correct target customer base and realize long-term success. When charting the course, one of the most important components of any e-commerce business plan is a marketing blueprint.

E-commerce is primarily about “defining and designing a site to reach an audience with a common interest or characteristic. Whatever your product or service, define your company’s niche markets that you can penetrate online with specialized offerings,” points out Michael Evans in a Forbes article on e-commerce strategies.2

You also need to understand your branding message. “A brand is the culmination of thoughts, actions and words. A brand reflects a common theme or a universal idea that all people can relate to. A brand moves people. It inspires action,” says Jonathan Greye in an online article at Spiritual Biz Magazine. “A brand can even have the potential to change the world. There’s power in words and images. And with the right intent, you’re branding can shape reality. We see it every day. We’ll choose a product over another because of the branding. It’s about the tone, the feeling and quality you experience that influences you, whether you’re aware of it or not.”5

How should you navigate the process? One way to develop a startup e-commerce marketing plan is to conduct an in-depth review of your product and brand that includes how to identify and reach the correct target audience, turn shopping cart views into sales, and manage the process. Here’s a simple seven-step process you can use: 3, 4

1. Identify Product and Brand Benefits

Focus on benefits—not features—of the product.

Determine what problems the product solves.

Define the emotional triggers the brand/product generates, because people purchase based on emotion more than logic.

2. Outline the Target Audience

Who will buy this product?

How will you find customers on the Internet?

3. Create Offers/Strategies that Attract the Target Audience

Identify and outline marketing and promotion channels and how they will be utilized. For example, social media, blogging, website design and content, pay-per-click advertising, email, banner ads, affiliate marketing, etc.

Address search engine optimization (SEO).

4. Define Ways to Capture Leads from Prospects and Convert Them to Sales

Develop strategies to collect information, such as offer free content for email newsletter signup, host local events and collect information on attendees, have a giveaway contest for free merchandise or services, etc.

Figure out ways to follow up with customers who have visited your site and entice them to buy, such as discounts for repeat customers, using a cart abandon feature in an e-commerce shopping cart platform, etc.

5. Implement a Marketing Budget

Outline available funding from the business plan to allocate to strategies identified in step 3 above.

6. Set Marketing Goals and Monitor Progress

Determine attainable marketing goals. For example, increase sales by 20 percent each quarter over the next year four quarters.

Over time, the company needs to identify the strategies that are working and those that are not working and make adjustments to the overall marketing plan.

7. Draft Future Plans

Based on the marketing goals, identify future marketing opportunities that will become feasible as more money and/or resources can be allocated.

 

The BhakTee Life Marketing Plan

Let’s look at our ongoing case study for The BhakTee Life through an overview of the marketing plan we created using this process:

1. Identify Product and Brand Benefits

As a brand, The BhakTee Life personifies “devotion.” The word is timeless and the concept is inherent in all creation. People want to live “The BhakTee Life.” The world around us is constantly manifesting through a tension of opposites, and our devotion or faith creates the foundation for our existence as we find a footing—a place that stands for our personal worldview—on Earth. The BhakTee Life does not tell people what to believe. The BhakTee Life tells people to believe in what is important to them on their own unique life journey and to stand firm in devotion to the principles and social structures that support their contribution to the conscious evolution and sustainable future of our world. The BhakTee Life encourages people to show strength without picking sides, to replace subjective views with objective support for the advancement of our planet at both the individual and global level. It inspires compassion, commitment, love, personal dignity and trust in its wearers.

2. Target Audience:

Who….

  • Men and women on a spiritual journey.
  • Those who are devoted to personal spiritual beliefs on their life journey.
  • Those interested in raising the consciousness of the Earth.
  • People who are opening or have opened their heart center and, as a result, are focused on “living in the heart,” which means ascending to a place where love is a state of consciousness, not an emotion.
  • People interested in being of service to others and the Earth (stewards of the Earth).
  • Those who understand that personal mindfulness can affect everyone with whom they come into contact during daily life.
  • People interested in resolving conflict and lack of resources for societies and cultures at a global level.
  • Those who understand: “My way is not the only way” to achieve spiritual growth and enlightenment.

Where:

  • Online spiritual groups, particularly those focused on metaphysics and gnostic teachings.
  • United States initially, then other English speaking countries.
  • Those at middle to upper income levels; people willing and able to spend money to promote what they believe in; college students with an interest in spiritual teachings.
  • People in geographic regions that have strong spiritual communities (Sarasota, FL; Boulder, CO; Asheville, NC; San Francisco, CA; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA, and more)
  • People interested in searching for resources on holistic health, energy healing modalities, metaphysics, sound healing, science and spirituality, yoga, meditation, prayer, alternative medicine, sustainable living, and more.

3. Offers/Strategies

Website and Blog

Developing a content-rich website and blog (both articles and video), The BhakTee Life will focus on:

  • Increasing brand awareness
  • Increasing traffic to the website
  • Improving search ranking and SEO
  • Building customer loyalty
  • Enhancing the brand’s position as an authority
  • Keeping visitors engaged in the website
  • Collecting sales leads and inquiries
  • Signing people up for an email newsletter
  • Following new trends of engagement, such as video blogging
  • Connecting with “influencers” on the web, including top bloggers, who can help spread The BhakTee Life message. At the same time, avoiding link farming, the process of exchanging reciprocal links with websites (often unrelated) to increase SEO.
  • Sharing through Reddit, an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website.

Video Blog Overview

YouTube currently is the second largest search engine on the Internet, making it one of the most important online marketing channels available. The BhakTee Life plans to use a YouTube channel to create a video blog that can be shared on social media and the website.

Social Media

Social media will be used to post meaningful content and pictures and to conduct low-cost paid advertising campaigns. The BhakTee Life will use Facebook for posting new designs and advertising campaigns. Additionally, Pintrest and Instagram will be linked to share more visual images of designs and people engaged in the practice of bhakti, to evoke an emotional response to the brand.

Integration of social media platforms will be a priority to increase efficiency of marketing outreach efforts.

Email Marketing

An email newsletter will be used as an extension of content marketing to:

  • Promote design
  • Offer discounts and announce sales
  • Send out relevant articles and video links from the blog

MailChimp will be used as the platform for email newsletters. It’s free at the introductory level and integrates with major e-commerce providers, including Shopify, which The BhakTee Life currently uses for its shopping cart. Additionally, MailChimp has social media integration with Facebook.

Public Relations

Use press releases, local business networking and participating in events to help raise awareness about and drive traffic to the online store. The BhakTee Life will send out a news release about the launch of the business and attend local spiritual events wearing tee shirts to promote the launch.

4. Capture Leads from Prospects and Convert Them to Sales

  • Email newsletter subscription on website homepage.
  • Signup lists for email newsletter at events.
  • Personal email lists.
  • Offer sales and specials via email and Facebook.
  • Send personal emails to customers asking for feedback and ideas to create loyalty and repeat business.
  • Ask customers to post pictures of themselves wearing The BhakTee Life’s shirts in acts of bhakti (meditation, prayer, service, etc.) to create loyalty and repeat business.

5. Marketing Budget

The initial marketing budget will be $100 per month.

Time budget: Four hours per week each on blog and social media.

6. Marketing Goals and Progress Monitoring

Goals

Increase sales 25 percent each quarter.

After three months, it’s projected that profits will fund the marketing budget and it will grow up to $500 per month by the end of the first year of operation.

Progress Monitoring

Weekly meetings in person or on phone to discuss objectives for first six months.

7. Future Plans

Join Marketplaces

Sell through Etsy and Amazon.

Pay-per-click Search Engine and Banner Ads

Use targeted ads that appear at the top of searches and websites (banners).

The BhakTee Life would pay a publisher (typically a search engine website or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. Pay-per-click works with first-tier search engines such as Google AdWords and Microsoft Bing Ads. The BhakTee life would bid on keyword phrases relevant to the target market. Example: If the BhakTee life bids $1.00 maximum on the keyword phrase “spiritual apparel” and it makes the highest bid, we most likely will show up first in a search engine as an “ad” listing. If 100 people click on the listing then the search engine or pay-per-click service will charge a maximum of $100.00. The BhakTee life hopes to have a budget for this after the first year of operation.

Put banner ads on content and social media sites that charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system.

Advertise with monthly paid banner ads on spiritual magazine websites such as:

  • Conscious Lifestyle Magazine at http://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/
  • Spirituality & Health Magazine at http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/
  • Soul & Spirit Magazine at http://www.soulandspiritmagazine.com/
  • Light of Consciousness at http://light-of-consciousness.org/
  • Aquarius at http://www.aquarius-atlanta.com/

Resources

1. “Worldwide Retail Ecommerce Sales Will Reach $1.915 Trillion This Year,” August 22, 2016, eMarketer, online market report at https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Worldwide-Retail-Ecommerce-Sales-Will-Reach-1915-Trillion-This-Year/1014369

2. “12 E-Commerce Strategies To Grow Your Business This Year,” by Michael Evans, January 16, 2014, Forbes, online article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2014/01/16/12-e-commerce-strategies-to-grow-your-business-this-year/#4d7fcbcd6ec9

3. “Marketing Plan Sample—5 Simple Steps to Market Any Business,” YouTube video, Tyson Zahner, YouTube Video at https://youtu.be/mjrguLMxIf0

4. “Marketing Plan,” Wikipedia, online analysis at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_plan

5. “What is Spiritual Branding,” by Jonathon Greye, Spiritual Biz Magazine, online article http://www.spiritualbizmagazine.com/what-is-spiritual-branding/

Lisa Cedrone is the editor of Transformation Magazine and a freelance editor, writer, and graphic designer working primarily in the spiritual and alternative healing communities. Prior to establishing her Sarasota, FL-based freelance business in 2008, Lisa spent 20 years as an editor/editor-in-chief for two of the Top 10 business-to-business publishers in the United States, serving the apparel manufacturing and residential construction/building markets. Her company, DragonFly Nation, offers a wide range of creative services, with an emphasis on cost-effective, turnkey editorial and design projects for both print and web. Contact her at lisa@suncoasttransformation.com or visit DragonFlyNation.com.

 

This entry was posted in Coaching. Bookmark the permalink.