The Million Dollar Brand Formula
I call this “the ultimate guide to building an ecommerce brand on Shopify” or “the million dollar brand formula”.
Before we continue I must warn you; this is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. Even if you do everything I tell you there’s still a pretty good chance you will not succeed on your first or even third try,
While I believe I have figured out the formula for creating a brand; there are so many variables at play that it’s sort of like you have to keep putting a puzzle together over & over before it finally fits together,
Things like;
- Going into an over-saturated marketplace where it’s just too hard to compete with competition who have been crushing for years.
- Having a product that is too expensive to fulfil or where your ad costs are just slightly too high where its impossible to make money with paid ads even with amazing creative.
- Low average order value – good product that sells but your average order value is just too low.
- Bad branding market match.
- Bad product idea.
The hardest part is finding the right niche and product / brand match.
If you can match your brand to a market in a way that is cool; they will buy whatever you sell.
If you also have a cool product that is a little different; they will eat it up and your brand will grow along with your profits.
What Makes A Successful Brand?
- A Cool Product, Positioned With The Right Branding To A Market That Has Money And Wants To Buy Stuff
FINDING YOUR NICHE
- Choose a large saturated market and just create something really cool. Examples: tummyco and sandandsky
The big questions:
Can you acquire customers profitably and consistently?
Can you start by dropshipping or ordering a low MOQ?
Are there multiple other competitors already crushing in the niche?
Are there multiple potential products if one fails?
Are there multiple ways to acquire customers?
Can you build a good sales funnel? [multiple add on products or collections]
Do the numbers work? [sale price: $40, fulfilment: $10, can you get buyers for $30 or less?]
What Makes A Good Brand?
A Broad Niche With Mass Appeal
A Unique Product And Or Angle
Ability For Entire Collection Of Related Products Or Multiple Collections
Multiple Congruent Upsell Products
Ability For Subscription Or High Ticket Sales
Ability For Long Form Sales Letters / Webinars / Cool Marketing
High Pain Points / Strong Desire To Fix Problem
Right Timing Before Market Saturation
Unique Take On Saturated Market
Potential To Acquire Customers From Multiple Sources?
Ability For Content Marketing And SEO
Ability For FB Ads – Video / Image / Story
Ability For Content Ads – Blog Posts / Presells
Ability For Lead Funnels – capture email > follow up via email
Ability For Google Adwords
Ability For Native Advertising
Ability For Influencers
Ability For More Traffic Sources: Pinterest/Bing/Snapchat
Research Phase: Scan Stores, Marketplaces, App Store Users, My IP List, Google, Amazon, Spy Tools, FB, Instagram Influencers. Make list of competitors to follow and model.
Complete Brand Or Dropship: Decide to either create a fresh brand that’s unique or to attempt to clone another brand or niche dropshipping store.
PHASE ONE: MVP Launch
PHASE TWO: OPTIMISING
PHASE THREE: HIRING
PHASE FOUR: GROWTH
Step 1: Find MVP And Get It Via Dropshipping or Order 100 Units
Step 2: Build Sales Funnel / Letter / Store
Step 3: Get Ad Material [Influencers/Giveaways/Brandsnob]
Step 4: Make Video Ad / Test Ad Creative For Platforms [FB/Google/Pinterest/Snap/IG/YT]
Step 5: Make Content Presell Ads Run On FB [3 little-known energy boosting hacks]
Step 6: Hire Someone For Google Adwords [And FB Too If Not Your Thing]
Step 7: Hire Someone For Snap/Pinterest/Other Traffic
Step 8: Hire Someone For Influencer Marketing
Step 9: Hire Someone For Content & SEO
Step 10: Hire Someone For Email Marketing / Copywriting / Offer Creation [managing list]
Step 11: Hire Someone For Native Advertising [Taboola/Outbrain]
Step 12: Start Rolling Out More Products / Product Offers > Copywriter Writes Everything
Step 13: Run Broadcast Campaigns And Build Master Email Sequence
Step 14: Run New Front-End Funnels – Email Optins, New Product Launches
Step 15: Gather Testimonials & Use For Heavy Re-Targeting
Step 16: Keep Pushing New Traffic Sources & Reach
