7 Retail Branding Strategies to Foster a Powerful Retail Brand
RETAIL BRANDING - BRAND IDENTITY - RETAIL MARKETING
Published On: October 06, 2023
What is Retail Branding?
“Retail branding is creating a unique and easily recognizable identity for a store which includes designing a distinctive logo, choosing the store's colors and style, and creating a consistent look and feel to make the store memorable to customers and to stand out in a crowded marketplace”.
Watching businesses breathe their last despite great investments, smooth teamwork, ingenious ideas and fiery enthusiasm is not an uncommon sight in the brutal world of retail. But every once in a while, companies excel and outshine their competition even without stellar investments and massive inputs.
Expert marketeers say that in the modern world, it is branding that is probably going to decide whether your business stays afloat or not. So, here are our top seven picks for the best and most effective strategies that can help your retail business out-brand the competition!
1. Investigate Consumer Research Journeys
The behavior of the average consumer has become smarter. But it is by no means unpredictable. Someone looking to make a certain purchase will be faced with hundreds of unique options every step of the way. Marketing professionals tend to focus on making your business just ‘stand out’.
However, there is more to it. Standing out is something every new business goes for. What marketing department hasn’t had a brainstorming meeting with the objective of becoming the easiest name for consumers to find?
20% Off Gardeningexpress Coupon Code
Take advantage of a generous 20% discount on everything. This is your chance to save on a wide range of products and enjoy great discounts across the board.
Yet, in the average consumer’s mind, most new brands end up in the same pile, to be ignored and discarded much like the spam folder in your email inbox.
Taking a close look at the pathways which lead consumers to your business can be worth a hundred marketing campaigns. If you are investing in SEO tools among other retail marketing services, you can utilize these.
Find out what potential customers are looking at before they end up queuing to make a purchase from your business or one of your competitors. Next, simplify this journey by making your retail store branding quickly ingestible. Have a minimalistic and relevant logo, make simple design choices and keep text content short.
2. Keep an Eye on Global Trends
Here’s some more detective work for your retail brand management and marketing professionals. Trend analysis for your retail brand should be divided into two sections, each identifiable by a corresponding question: (A) What are your customers looking for?; and (B) What are your customers finding?
Knowing the latest marketing techniques is only one side of this; knowing customer preferences and tastes is the other. In answering the first question, you and your team will investigate customer demands. Your brand can now begin inching closer to the spotlight. The second question will tell you how to drag the spotlight to your brand. How to become what your customers demand.
When you end up with results in the form of relevant trends and actionable knowledge, that’s when you know you have dug deep enough. But you are by no means done. Trend analysis is a continuous process.
Your retail marketing strategy team will need keen eyes that regularly scan the global retail industry and understand the newest things customers are looking for and the newest things that are attracting them.
3. Build an Attractive Presence Online
If your business operates in an even slightly urban city or state, the internet is probably where it will generate most of its leads. Having a strong, interactive online presence will only help this number go higher up. And this applies to companies that don’t have an online sales system in place, too.
Recently revealed statistics tell us that 44% of consumers believe a business’ official website is the best retail branding platform for them to understand product benefits.
Here’s a key idea to keep in mind when designing your business website or curating your commercial blogs. You don’t have to be loud to stand out. No one knows why modern-day entrepreneurs are so slow to learn.
But everyone knows the nauseating feeling of clicking on an overdone website only to have your senses bombarded by its dense design and difficult navigation.
Being spammed by a marketing campaign sounds very late-2000’s, but ask any experienced web-surfer and they will tell you how much it still exists.
Rather than bulking up your investments into expansive, feature-packed websites, social media ads and spam-message marketing, pay for stronger, more interactive customer services.
If you’re going for a particularly bold brand image, you can also ditch the whole corporate formality and hand over your social media account to your quirkiest employees and tell them to joke around.
Social media marketing is also one of effective way for branding.
This is especially popular on X (formerly Twitter), where large chains like fast food giant Wendy’s and retail chain Moosejaw poke fun at rivals and make edgy posts using their official handles, all of which contribute to retail branding and virality.
4. Understand and Implement Experiential Retail
For retail companies that depend on physical brick-and-mortar stores for their sales, there is no better way to excel than to structure their stores around the concept of experiential retail.
The core idea is to focus on providing customers with an immersive and interactive shopping experience that engages their senses and creates lasting memories.
If you’re frowning imagining a museum-esque department store with ornate decor and architecture, we can tell you it’s not always expensive. If you are paying for real estate in a hyper-urban area like Manhattan or downtown Dubai, it won’t make much of a difference to invest a little in making the enterprise look top-notch. But if, like most, your retail brand is located in a subtler, more monotonous environment, it takes very little to turn it into a sensory marvel.
Intelligent store layouts, picturesque lighting, architecture, and product placement make a shopper’s trek through even the smallest establishment exciting, encouraging them to tell their close ones about it until their next visit.
Artfully designed store branding takes a large load off your in-house marketing department. In a survey, it was revealed that 98% of customers create and share their own digital content with subscribers and followers.
Aesthetically and tastefully executed retail branding is an art. Employ visual techniques to guide customers through aisles, highlight key products, and create an immersive shopping atmosphere.
5. Stick to Your Brand Image
Staying true and consistent to your brand image is as important as creating it. Brand consistency stretches from simple choices like a signature combination of two or three colors, to bolder messages like political statements.
A 2018 publication claims that using a signature color or color combo can make it 80% easier for consumers’ to recognize your brand and think of it when they see these colors regardless of the context.
It helps to consider this an effort to “humanize” your retail store branding. Think of it this way: lead conversion and customer loyalty depends on how much they are able to trust your brand. And to win their trust, you need to give your customers something to trust which is more than just words!
Colors, designs, symbolism, a logo and a message are all the things that come together to give your brand a face and identity; something your customers can talk about it place their trust in.
6. Offer Loyalty Programs For Efficient Retail Branding
Many retail brand management teams are okay with having their business survive and thrive on an ever-changing customer base. But the greatest in the industry are the greatest because they cherish their most valuable assets: long-term customers.
Customer retention is about delivering quality products, but it is also about giving customers reasons to stick around. Businesses that implement premium programs always see big and fast profits.
Incentivising your most loyal customers with a reward system associates them directly with your retail branding and makes shopping at a rival store worth much less.
A marketing study from 2019 showed that for many customers, the offer of a reward was enough to draw them away from brands they previously felt loyal to. The same article reports that less than 8% of consumers feel unaffected by offers of rewards in the process of making a purchase.
Subscriptions and memberships play into another highly successful marketing trend: offering personalized experiences to shoppers. A loyalty program works by offering
unique discounts and deals to every customer.
However, providing exceptionally accommodating customer services to (at least) your premium subscribers is what really feeds customer loyalty and retention in the first place!
7. Reward Referrals, too!
Fashion store chain Rothy’s has an insanely successful ‘give $20, get $20’ referral program. Every time someone shops at Rothy’s because a friend told them about it, both friends
get a $20 discount on their next purchase.
This is an example of referral marketing, and a very smart method to reward your customers for contributing to word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth is by far the most effective element your retail marketing strategy can have.
A 2021 survey conducted by marketing corporation Nielsen says 92% of consumers believe their friends and family over any kind of advertising. A lot of similar data is sprinkled around the internet.
Another marketing company, RRD, interviewed 1,000 consumers, and published that 55% discover new products through word of mouth. Every two out of five make purchases based on these recommendations, and 28% would prefer word-of-mouth over any other form of discovery.
The same study also interviewed a group of marketeers, and found that only 7% acknowledge that word-of-mouth affects customers’ decisions. But then why can all of us recall occasions when we purchased, or at least looked up, a product or store simply because someone told us about it?
Rewarding your customers for speaking about your brand, posting online, or bringing a friend next time, are all simple measures that will catalyze your brand’s journey to becoming a household name.
Retail Branding Examples:
1. Apple:
Known for its minimalist and sleek design, Apple has created a strong and recognizable brand identity. From its iconic logo to the clean and user-friendly design of its stores, Apple is synonymous with innovation and quality. Using
Apple promo codes you can get best offers as well.
2. Coca-Cola:
Coca-Cola's timeless red and white logo, along with its classic glass bottle, has made it an enduring brand. The company's branding emphasizes happiness, sharing, and refreshment, which resonate with consumers worldwide.
3. Nike:
Nike's "Swoosh" logo is one of the most recognized symbols in the world. The company's branding focuses on athletic performance, empowering athletes, and the "Just Do It" slogan, all of which have contributed to its global success. You can get best prices on Nike products by usng
Nike coupon codes.
4. Starbucks:
Starbucks has created a cozy and welcoming atmosphere in its coffee shops, making them a "third place" for people to relax and socialize. The green logo, coffee-centric menu, and commitment to sustainability are key elements of its brand.
5. Amazon:
Amazon's brand is built around convenience, reliability, and an extensive product selection. Its smiling arrow logo suggests customer satisfaction, while services like Prime reinforce the idea of convenience and fast delivery. Use
Amazon discount codes for cheap prices.
What exactly is Retail Branding?
To sum it all up, retail branding is not just a bunch of cosmetics, and it shouldn’t be considered simply an aspect of marketing. Branding is larger than marketing. It is literally the interface your consumers see and interact with if they ever become your consumers.
Be smart about branding, and you just might get away with being not-so-smart in another aspect of managing your retail business!