Are you building your brand or just generating revenue?

Last week I had a call with the owner of a fashion brand. He wanted to speed up his Shopify store as he thought that was the biggest problem he had now.

His choice of next actions was confusing me. Despite the fact his products were interesting, there wasn’t much to differentiate them from other brands in the same category.

“What are you doing to grow your store now?” I asked.
“I’m running ads,” he replied
“Why?”
“To build the brand.”
“Really?”
“Yes! More people see my brand and products and later they come to my website and sign up to the newsletter, through which they later may become customers”

What confused me here was the fact that the store owner thought that generating revenue, and building the brand were the same thing.

But they are not. They work on different facets of the whole system. Let me explain:

Running adds for brand awareness doesn’t build your brand

It just helps people notice your. But do they remember you? Showing up in front of them only helps you make money down the road on the second, third, fourth (or ninth, according to old Coca-Cola research) viewing of your ads from the same viewers. That’s generating revenue—feeding people into the system you’ve created so you can get money in exchange for the product you are offering. But are they buying the story or your product?

Building the brand is building the story behind your products

Establish the key reason why your products are different and what makes them unique. Why should people care about your products more than others from the same category?

Seeing the difference makes it obvious that just running Facebook ads won’t help your business grow in the long run. You’ll be stuck in the same loop of pouring in money to make more money. Pouring more money in ads won’t level up your efficiency in converting people.

Your brand is the multiplier of your efforts

Do people remember you? Do they come for a second and third order?
Do they talk about you in front of their friends?

If they do, conversion rates go up, AOV goes up and your revenue goes up without more traffic.

That’s what a focus on truly developing the story behind products, a.k.a building your brand is going to do for your business.

If you’ve read this far, you’ll like my guide to discovering missed revenue opportunities on your Shopify store!