Modern business relies heavily on the power of your brand. While this has always been true to some extent, the modern consumer really seems to respond to brands and what they represent in a major way. This means that establishing a positive brand image that consumers can associate with is key to succeeding for any organization.
If you can do this, you will build up a loyal base of customers who buy into what you do and will purchase goods from you. In addition, it will make attracting new customers easier as they will be ready to engage with you on the basis of your brand alone.
What this means for modern businesses is that protecting your brand is paramount to seeing long-term success. While building it up in the first place will take hard work, looking after it after this is almost as key. This becomes especially true when selling online, where effective measures to protect your brand must be put into place.
Powerful ways to defend your brand online
There is no doubt that e-commerce is a must for businesses now. With over 4 billion internet users around the world and many of them preferring to shop online for goods or services, it is somewhere your business also needs to be. However, to make the most of selling here, you need to ensure that your brand retains its positive and powerful appeal.
Here are some clever and effective ways to go about it:
- Get some Amazon seller help – offering help to Amazon sellers to defend their brand is a great service that companies including Digital Brandworks provide. Many companies will sell online at Amazon, but it can be a dangerous place for your brand image. Unauthorized usage or misrepresentation by third parties can really cause harm if they are providing a poor service. Full-service Amazon agencies can help you take back control by keeping a constant eye on Amazon for any such activity and nipping it in the bud. The net result is a fully protected brand when selling online there.
- Provide great customer service – although some problems with brand defense online is a result of nefarious activity, not all of it will be. The very first thing you should do yourself to look after your brand when selling online is give the best customer service. This should extend across any online communication channels that your business uses from social media to instant chat or email. Giving the best support to customers will help to leave them with a good impression of your company and keep your brand intact for the future.
- Tighten up your trademark – a very good idea when selling your goods online under an official business name is to use a watertight trademark. This alone will help to stop other people from using your logo or other trademarked aspects of your overall brand. Not only will this help to prevent people from illegally using your brand to sell goods online, but it will also help to better control your brand presence there.
- Tackle the offending third party direct – if you notice that your brand is under attack when selling online, then it is essential to react quickly. This will help to stop more harm being done to your image and hopefully make the wrongdoer stop altogether. Once you have identified an issue, the first step is to consult your legal team and get a “cease and desist” letter sent out to the other party. If this does not work, then you can move on to full legal action.
- Always follow up bad reviews – a real problem for some businesses when selling online is fake reviews that trash their product or service. These can be from competitors causing mischief or trolls simply being annoying. The damage that this can do to your brand is no joke though! To help defend it from this sort of harm, make sure to respond publicly to bad reviews left by customers and follow up professionally on their complaint. This will help to protect your brand and show real consumers that you are to be trusted.
Defending your brand when selling online is crucial
If you own a business that sells products online, then it really is key to protect your company’s reputation. If you do not, then the harm done to it by unauthorized sellers or fake reviews can really undo all your good work in building it up. Hopefully, the above has given you some great ways to go about it and maintain a positive brand image with your customers.