As a direct-to-consumer (D2C) company, you have unique advantages and challenges in creating your branding strategy. Because you don’t need a third-party retailer, you can control how your brand is perceived. 

With SMS marketing, you can grab the attention of more leads and connect with your audience more personally when you are not relying on a middleman. By signing up to get your custom Community phone number, you can start branding your business in a way that portrays your company’s mission, vision, and values. 

Here are some branding strategies for D2C brands to consider using.

‍

Use Text Marketing to Differentiate Your Brand

Community’s text marketing platform allows you to set your brand apart from other direct-to-consumer brands by providing a direct line of communication to your customers. 

Texting is how you can instantly position your brand right in front of the eyes of leads and customers in a way that makes you stand out from your competitors. No other form of communication is as personal or direct—plus Community’s 95% average text open rate speaks for itself when it comes to effectiveness. 

‍

Brand Voice Versus Tone

Your brand voice and tone are closely related but not the same thing. Your brand’s voice consists of what your messages are. The tone of your brand is all about how you’re saying those messages. 

When you’re using your Community text number for your direct-to-consumer brand, you must evaluate both the content of your messages as well as how you say them. 

Texting is a great way to achieve a friendly and welcoming brand tone since many people are already used to using text for engaging in personal conversations. Make it even more personal with emojis, GIFs, audio clips, and photos—all of which can be sent through your Community platform, just like in regular text messages. 

Incorporate meaningful content into your messages and get creative in the way that you’re saying them. Your audience members will remember your brand voice and tone and differentiate you from your less personal competition. 

‍

Authenticity Through Connection

Another important aspect of your D2C tone should be authenticity. One study found that 86% percent of consumers said authenticity was a key factor when deciding what brands they wanted to support.

Authenticity should be the cornerstone of your branding strategy, and Community helps you make it a cornerstone. With Community’s SMS platform, your customers and audience members communicate with the real you—no chatbots or automated webs for them to get caught in. 

Engage with your customers directly in personal SMS conversations to see your company’s authentic human side.

‍

You’re in Control

A strong advantage to using a text platform in your branding strategy is your ability to be fully in control of how your company gets portrayed. 

As a D2C company, you’re interacting with customers without worrying about misrepresentation by a third-party retailer. Create messages and text campaigns that give a glimpse into your brand’s personality and hit the tone you want to achieve. 

Whether you describe your brand’s voice as knowledgeable and professional or casual and fun, you get to choose how you engage with your audience to ensure you’re coming off the way.

‍

Create Consistency in Your Branding with SMS

In branding, consistency is everything. Research shows that consistency in brand presentation is linked to as much as a 33% increase in revenue. Brands that require a third-party retailer have to hope their branding is conveyed consistently. 

As a D2C brand using our SMS platform, you ensure your messages, campaigns, and responses are aligned consistently with your brand voice and tone. Provide a consistently excellent customer experience when your audience members interact with your company because you connect with them.

‍

Engage with Customers Personally

The best part of texting as part of your branding strategy is the opportunity to connect with your audience on a personal level. 

If you’re an e-commerce brand without a physical storefront, Community helps you get into the palm of your customers’ hands and hold personal conversations as if you were right there with them. 

Send text polls and surveys to get to know your audience members on a deeper level. That way, you can better understand their needs and how your brand can provide for them. 

Community helps you segment your audience by interests and other behavioral factors to keep conversations relevant and meaningful. 

‍

Segmentation for Customized Campaigns

Community’s Demographic Filters and segmented Communities feature allows you to target the subgroups of your audience interested in a specific message or campaign. 

Segmentation is a vital part of the branding strategy for your product or service so you can connect with the sectors of your market. Create customized segmented Communities within your audience based on age, gender identity, location, interests, and more. Segments let you shape your texts with the content, timing, and tone that makes the most sense for each member.

An easy way to organize your audience into segments is by using Community’s Keywords function. You can customize your Keywords, assign them to designated subgroups, and then ask your Members to text in whichever ones they apply to them the most. 

Keywords are an efficient way to get to know your individual Members’ lifestyle choices and interests—helping you engage with them in a deeper, more authentic way. 

‍

Build Brand Loyalty

Engagement is a great way to build brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is vital to your direct-to-consumer company. When you’re not in front of your audience in storefronts, brand loyalty is how you can stay top of mind. 

What better way to stay top of mind than by connecting through SMS on the phone screens of your customers? Establish your brand as one that understands and responds personally to its audience. 

Through segmentation, your brand can provide customized texts in two-way conversations to keep customer engagement high, leading to stronger brand loyalty.

‍

Increase Customer Retention

A branding strategy using SMS marketing will increase customer retention rates if you optimize the functions of Community’s platform to their full potential. 

Use the Clustering feature to ensure that Member’s texts are responded to. The Clustering feature gathers large groups of similar messages and lets you send one response to all of them at once. You’ll see that staying connected to every person in your audience increases your customer retention rates. 

Studies show that the probability of selling to an existing customer is anywhere between 60% and 70%—meaning that customer retention and satisfaction should be one of the main focuses in your branding strategy. Community’s platform gives you the ability to treat your audience members like real human beings and not just as a number or sale. 

That level of personal connection encourages them to continue purchasing from your company for years to come. It will also provide a safe environment for them to communicate their needs or concerns, and with the Clustering feature, you can be sure that no text goes unanswered. 

Demonstrate authenticity and build trust through personal conversations—ultimately resulting in increased customer retention for your brand. 

‍

Insights for Switching it up When Needed

Community’s platform gives your direct to consumer business the Insights you need to keep your branding strategy relevant and effective. Use the Insights feature to track and manage the success of your text campaigns so you can see what’s working and what needs switching up. The Insights feature shows you the open, click, and response rates of each audience member so you can monitor their engagement and provide the content and messages they want to receive.  

‍

Final Thoughts on Branding

Your direct to consumer brand can use texting to create the ultimate branding strategy. No other marketing channel or branding tool provides a direct and personal connection to your customers as texting does. 

With Community, your audience is engaging with an actual human and not an automated robot. Our platform opens the door for you to create authentic relationships that will build a brand-loyal audience. 

Take control of the voice and tone of your messages and easily monitor the engagement of your campaigns with our user-friendly platform. Community provides the convenience of an app that keeps your members organized while sending real text messages to your audience. Build a D2C brand voice that represents you and keeps your interactions authentic.  

‍

Sources:

10 Branding Statistics You Need to Know in 2021 [Infographic] | Oberlo 

3 Ways To Build A Consistent, Polished And Engaging Brand Voice | Forbes 

70 Powerful Customer Retention Statistics You Need to Know in 2021 | SEMRush‍

Photo by Studio Blackthorns on Unsplash