In ecommerce it’s easy to get fixated on direct sales. If, your customers have never heard of your business (or possibly even your product), so all you can do is run ads and hope that people click, get excited and make a purchase, but how to build brand?
To make the most of your brand, you have to optimize everything with that simple sales funnel in mind. It’s all you’ve got, after all.
Because that mindset is so vital to their early success, many businesses get stuck there. Long after their business begins to thrive and build a name for itself, they continue to focus all of their marketing efforts on driving direct sales.
It makes sense, but it’s a mindset that can actually limit your long-term success.
For most businesses, direct sales is actually one of the least profitable ways to drive revenue. Because it’s the lifeblood of so many businesses, it tends to be extremely competitive and it does little to bring customers in through other, cheaper channels.
How to build brand? A good organic brand presence, on the other hand, allows you to get sales in other, more affordable ways. If paid ads are the only thing you’re relying on, you won’t be able to scale and grow. You’re paying for every click at each step of your funnel.
So, at a certain point, you can’t just drive direct sales with your marketing—you have to start doing something with your brand.
Making the Most of Your Brand
Of course, the better your brand is, the more important it will be to defend it. If people are searching for your brand, your competitors may start bidding on your branded terms. It’s a good idea to protect your brand by bidding on your own terms.
It might seem counterintuitive to pay for clicks on the branded search terms you’ve worked so hard, but branded clicks are usually very cheap and bidding on your brand gives you a ton of options.
In some cases, you can use branded ads to measure the effectiveness of other branding efforts. If branded searches go up after you launch that new video ad, you know it’s helping to build brand awareness.
Alternatively, you might want to show different search results based on whether someone is an existing customer or a new customer.
If you use a smart “remarketing lists for search ads” strategy, you can ensure that the right people are seeing the right message.
Finally, even if the competition isn’t actively bidding on your brand, bidding on your own brand can still increase the number of clicks you get for your own search terms. That’s why we almost always recommend investing in your brand—coupled with bidding on your branded search terms.
Conclusion
Your brand is one of your biggest marketing assets. Even if you’re not trying to be the next Nike, a little brand awareness can go a long ways towards making your PPC advertising more profitable. Read more about branding here
Building a solid brand name also unlocks a variety of new, clever PPC options. It can help you make the most of every aspect of your online marketing.