Successfully Activating Your Brand Online with E-Comm Assets

You’ve designed your brand and your packaging. It’s beautiful and it communicates well – you’re ready to bring your product to market. Now what? If you’re planning on selling your products online, you will need e-commerce – more commonly known as “e-comm” – assets.

E-comm assets can include renderings of your packaging, ingredient lists, still images highlighting product benefits or usage occasions, Amazon A+ content, video, and more. While your package is the foundation of your brand, e-comm content allows you to create an enhanced online experience that allows online shoppers to interact with your product.

A Further Opportunity to Communicate

One of the primary benefits of e-comm assets is the added real estate which allows you to further your product’s story and educate shoppers in a comprehensive and visual way. When designing a package, it’s important to limit your communication to key benefits and not overwhelm the consumer. However, when moving to e-comm panels, you are afforded much more space to delve into the features of your product that are important but that may not have fit on your packaging.

Choosing What to Highlight

E-comm panels allow your brand to highlight its unique selling points. They can also be considered an extension of your packaging and help emphasize your brand’s unique look and feel. E-comm panels are commonly displayed as a series of square images that often include text, photography and graphics, allowing consumers to swipe or scroll to learn more about your brand or product. It’s customary to start with a render or high-quality photograph of your package. After this image, you should prioritize information that will encourage consumers to add your product to their cart.  This often includes:

• Benefits: Call out your product’s unique benefits! Whatever makes it special, this is your opportunity to delve deeper into those reasons to believe. You have unlimited space to convince the consumer to purchase.‍
• Ingredients: If your ingredients are a positive to be emphasized, list them out. Additional callouts or ingredient imagery can enhance the message.
• Product Attributes: Share the specifics of your product, including dimensions, what products it pairs well with, if it comes in multiple colors or sizes, etc.
• Nutritional information: E-comm panels are a great place to list your nutritional information in a visually accessible way.
• Certifications: Gluten-free, made in the USA, woman-owned? Whatever your certifications are, show them off proudly and give them a moment to shine. Consumers will love knowing what makes your product special.
• Usage: Emphasize unique usage opportunities. From a kitchen spread to recipe suggestions, showing how your product functions in real life can better diversify its applications and educate consumers on its intended use.
• Transitions/New Look: New graphics can cause confusion for consumers who are used to a certain look. If you’ve recently updated your packaging, use your e-comm panels to call out the “New Look!” to help clarify the situation and ensure no sales are missed.
• Lifestyle photos: Bring your package to life! Show your mac & cheese box in a kitchen, your chips at a picnic, your cat devouring treats. It’s the perfect opportunity to help consumers envision the end benefit in their own lives.
• Seasonal callouts: If your product has a seasonal niche, e-comm panels may be the perfect place to highlight it. That might look like an image of candy being gifted with a heart-shaped card for Valentine’s Day or a recipe incorporating your spice mix into eggnog for the holidays.
• Cross-Sell: When you have other sizes, flavors, or simply other products you want to highlight, you can use e-comm panels as an opportunity to showcase them, encouraging consumers to buy more from your brand.

The Importance of Brand Consistency

When creating e-comm panels, it’s important to maintain your brand’s look, feel, and voice as you’ve established it across your packaging. Using consistent colors, fonts, imagery styles and brand elements will help create visual symmetry across your brand’s touchpoints. Using a consistent tone of voice with all headlines, callouts and body copy will also anchor your brand in its own unique foothold. Digital channels allow you to bring your packaging to life and speak directly to consumers when they are created to embellish your product and supplement your brand message in a cohesive way.

A picture is worth a thousand words – use e-comm assets as an opportunity to visually communicate what makes your brand special to consumers. Lean into visuals and keep your copy limited so that you can succinctly showcase your product’s attributes. With almost unlimited space and endless possibilities, e-commerce assets offer a final chance for your brand to resonate with consumers. When done successfully, they help sell your product and convert purchase intent to purchase decision.