The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
Establishing a strong brand is key for any business. Branding represents your company internally and externally, sets you apart from the competition, tells people who you are and what matters to you, and encourages them to form an emotional connection.
But branding has little value in a vacuum. To make a lasting impression on potential customers, you need to share your brand identity across multiple touchpoints. Shopify talked with business owners about their best branding ideas to gain visibility, boost sales, and increase engagement.
A brand story is a brief narrative that explains how and why your business came to be. It often includes the idea that first inspired the company, core guiding principles, and background on the founder and their mission. These details ultimately help customers connect more deeply with your brand.
Spice company Diaspora Co. shares founder Sana Javeri Kadra’s personal journey as a means to demonstrate its commitment to empowering South Asian spice farmers. Kadra grew up in Mumbai; as a young adult, she moved to California to pursue a career in food justice and began to reflect on the echoes of colonial exploitation in the contemporary spice trade.
“I was slowly discovering that not much about that system had changed,” Kadra writes on the brand’s About Us page, pointing out how current practices shortchange farmers and produce inferior products. “Farmers made no money, spices changed hands upwards of 10 times before reaching the consumer, and the final spice on your shelf was usually an old, dusty shadow of what it once was."
Diaspora’s brand story shares how this realization motivated Kadra to launch her company and the work that went into it—including seven months of market research and over 40 farm visits. Channel Diaspora's strategy by weaving your own brand story into your website, as well as additional touchpoints like product packaging and social posts.
A successful influencer marketing strategy accomplishes two goals: It boosts brand awareness by helping you reach new target audiences, and it influences how those audiences see your brand.
Brands can partner with influencers in a variety of ways, from sponsored posts and testimonials to more organic product seeding, where brands gift free products to influencers in the hopes that those who like it will post about it.
Healthish, a wellness company that promotes hydration, used product seeding to launch its signature water bottle. “We just [sent products] to many subsections of the market,” says cofounder Nathan Chan on Shopify Masters. “We sent [it] out to fashion bloggers. We sent [it] out to fitness influencers. We sent [it] out to vloggers. We sent [it] out to people who were in all sorts of different niches and markets. And then we could see when somebody posted what that result would be, and we refined it.”
Chan suggests prioritizing working with creators with an engaged audience over someone with a massive follower count. “It’s not the size of the following,” Chan says. “It’s the relationship that that influencer has with their audience.”
Paid advertising can quickly build brand awareness and increase your business presence in key digital spaces like social media, search engines, and publications. When Ryan Bartlett started True Classic to bring a better-fitting t-shirt to market, he immediately invested in Facebook Ads to get the word out about the brand and how it solved a problem that competitors didn’t.
“Ultimately, the best content early on is always the content that revolves around problem solving,” Bartlett says. “I was solving three problems, ultimately, and I had to get that across in the early content to sell t-shirts.” Bartlett then measured which types of ads had the strongest return on ad spend (ROAS), and invested more in those to multiply profits.
If expertise is a key part of your brand identity, create content that goes deep on nuance and detail, and tailor it for a niche audience. Lars Lofgren, cofounder and chief growth officer of the marketing agency Stone Press, recommends focusing on little-explored topics within your industry. “You have to be able to say something that hasn’t been said before,” he says. “The way you make this way easier for yourself is you pick a niche that’s small enough and targeted enough, and the bar comes way down.”
The goal of this type of content isn’t to promote your products. Rather, it exists to solve a problem or otherwise provide value to the reader. Doing so can help you establish a strong brand identity by positioning yourself and your brand as an expert in a particular subject. Content strategies to explore include starting an email newsletter or sharing thought leadership or educational posts on social media channels.
Customer loyalty programs recognize and reward your business’s most loyal clients. You can use them to build customer loyalty, increase sales, incentivize repeat purchases, and encourage your fans to promote your company to others. They’re also a chance to reinforce brand messages about your commitment to customer service and your investment in customer relationships.
“Acquisition costs for ad spend to get new customers have just risen exponentially over the last few years,” says Jen Yu, cofounder of skin care brand Jaxon Lane. “So we launched a loyalty program earlier this year. You can accrue points [when you] make purchases and refer friends.” These points can then be swapped for specialty discounts.
A loyalty program also provides additional branded touchpoints for customers: Your loyalty program materials, which could include exclusive email messages, website pages, and even an app, are chances to showcase your brand’s visual identity and voice. Entertainment company A24’s loyalty program, for example, gives members access to branded merch, print zines, and exclusive content.
A brand video is a brief narrative video that promotes your brand identity, your products, or both. Many companies use them to share brand stories, educate consumers, or introduce the faces behind the brand.
Skin care brand Dieux opts for honest storytelling in its brand videos to connect with its target audience. “We call ourselves a ’too much information’ brand,” says founder Charlotte Palermino. “We share what your skin needs, what it doesn’t, how it’s so varied, and that, quite frankly, our products are not going to be for everybody.”
Some of the brand’s most-viewed videos simply explain the science behind its products or why it uses aluminum packaging.
Custom ecommerce packaging adds a branded touchpoint to an important moment in your customer journey: the moment they receive and open a product. “A lot of brands think of marketing purely in the digital sense these days,” says Britt Martin, head of partnerships at the custom packaging company Arka. “But the box and the packaging is really an opportunity to do that offline.”
Packaging can also help you make a strong first impression. “It’s your first physical touchpoint with a customer,” Britt says. “A lot of people think about what’s in the box as the [customer] journey, but a huge part of that journey is what’s on the box.”
Britt recommends using custom shippers and mailers to provide brand continuity and set yourself apart from the competition. For example, you might send mailers in your brand’s signature colors or print custom welcome text on package exteriors.
User-generated content (UGC) is any content your audience creates and shares about your brand. It can include product photos and videos, social media comments or posts, and reviews posted on your company website or third-party review platforms.
UGC can happen organically, as was the case with skin care brand Tower 28. When people discovered the brand’s SOS Daily Rescue Facial Spray helped soothe skin irritation caused by wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, they took to social media to share their results.
“We saw people saying, like, ‘Hey, this spray is really changing my skin,’” says founder Amy Liu. “They would post their before-and-afters … And then I would write to them and I’d say, ‘If you really love it, can I use your before-and-after? And I’ll give you another bottle.’” This social proof created a snowball effect for the now multimillion-dollar brand.
You can also solicit UGC from happy customers through campaigns, such as contests, giveaways, and hashtag campaigns. These incentivize users to create and share content featuring your brand. To maximize the benefits, include parameters that encourage the types of content you want.
Strategic partnerships with other brands can increase your brand awareness by providing access to your partner’s audience. They can also increase brand affinity by lending your brand image positive attributes from the other company’s brand identity.
A collaboration could mean creating a unique product offering that combines the strengths of each partner brand, or you might team up with another company to promote each other’s products or services
For example, tinned fish company Fishwife and Sichuan pantry staple retailer Fly By Jing collaborated on Smoked Salmon with Chili Crisp and Smoked Salmon with Sweet and Spicy Zhong. “We saw increased credibility from being associated with this brand that had solidified its reputation a couple of years before we did,” says Becca Millstein, cofounder and CEO of Fishwife. “It marked us as being particularly innovative in this previously stagnant category.”
According to a recent Statista survey, 61% of global consumers say it’s important that a brand’s core values align with their own. Additionally, 51% of global consumers say it’s very or extremely important for brands to give them a way to connect with those who share their values or lifestyle, according to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer report.
Your brand values might be built into your product, such as sustainable electric toothbrush brand Suri’s plant-based recyclable brush heads. Or, you might share your values through your business practices, like sock brand Bombas does by donating one item for every item a customer purchases.
Peter Dering, founder of camera and travel accessories brand Peak Design, launched the Change Climate Project to encourage businesses to reduce their carbon footprints. Brands that meet the organization’s standards for measuring and disclosing their emissions and funding climate solutions receive the Climate Label, which also helps signal to eco-conscious shoppers which brands align with their values.
“It is the most robust climate certification that a company can attain,” Dering says. “I’m extremely proud of the fact that this is seen in the industry as the most bona fide way to take action for climate change.”
In-person events can also help you increase awareness and build positive associations with your brand. Choose an event that reinforces a key element of brand identity, provides value to your target audience, and aligns with your business and marketing goals.
When purpose-driven streetwear brand Uprisers was invited to showcase at ComplexCon, it was a dream for founder Michelle K. Hanabusa. But to stay true to her brand mission, she didn’t want to show up alone.
“In my past experiences of going to the show, I didn't see a ton of folks that look like us—Asian, female-owned streetwear brands—that had a booth, right? And so I was like, because we have this community-first concept, I want to bring as many Asian-owned brands with me as possible for this opportunity,” Hanabusa says.
Ultimately, Hanabusa brought along 13 other small businesses for Uprisers’ Japanese convenience store-inspired booth, called Family Market. Rather than simply telling people about Uprisers’ mission, she was able to show it through these partnerships.
Repetition is key to building a strong brand identity, so maintain consistency across brand and marketing collateral. “The most important aspect of branding as a whole is consistency,” says Lofgren, of Stone Press. “Color palette, vibe, feeling, your principles, your values, your logos, the position of the company, the value prop, all of it—the only way that has any chance to truly have an impact is if it’s consistent.”
Confirm that your brand guidelines are accurate and current and that your marketing team can easily access them. Lofgren also cautions against changing your brand identity without a plan to implement those changes. “Even if you have a perfect approach to your branding, even if it’s the best thing that’s ever been created, if it’s not consistent across everything that you’re doing and you don’t also have the opportunity to hit your market with it over and over and over again, it’s not going to matter,” he says.
Branded merchandise is any product featuring one of your company’s identifying brand assets, such as your name, your logo, or a recognizable slogan. Selling or giving away branded merch can boost brand awareness, encourage brand loyalty, and improve your brand’s reputation. Think of it like a mini version of influencer marketing, where each branded coffee mug or zip hoodie signals the owner’s implicit endorsement of your brand.
To maximize the benefits to your company, create products that correspond with an element of your brand identity, whether that’s the value you offer or your brand’s distinctive personality. Premium chili crisp company Fly By Jing regularly partners with AAPI artisans for limited-edition merch releases, including a knit blanket with the famous Chinese proverb “民以食為天” (to the people, food is heaven).
“The result is an expression of our brand that gives us a chance to enhance people’s living spaces in a way that still feels true to our roots,” says founder Jing Gao.
This story was produced by Shopify and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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