Defining Your Brand

Tight upfront focus on your target market makes every step easier and will yield dramatically better results.

This article will take only three minutes to read and will make or break your first year of dropshipping.

Americans consume over 400 million cups of coffee per day. The market’s growing and, especially since COVID, more and more people are drinking coffee at home. Perfect for your new online coffee business, right?

You're not the first person to sell coffee on the internet (and that's ok!)

We know it can be incredibly tempting to start with a company name, an internet domain, a logo and a Shopify store – you know, all the fun stuff! But let’s start with some perspective:

A generic Google search for “buy coffee online” yields 2.2 billion results, 4 paid text ads and 9 paid image ads. Even if you made it to the top search engine result, you would still show up after all of those.
There are only 33 countries in the world that produce Arabica coffee beans. To the average consumer, it looks like thousands of coffee companies are selling the exact same product.
Every coffee company claims they are small batch, fresh roasted, roasted-to-order, farm-to-cup, artisanal coffee experts.
There are many established competitors with loyal customers.

Successful brands are unique, even if their products aren't

Take a look at some very popular internet coffee brands – Black Rifle Coffee Co. and Bones Coffee.

Is their coffee different from each other? Not really.

Pricing? Within a dollar or so.

Now take a look at a Jumpin Goat Coffee Roasters. Same coffee, same pricing. But you’ve never heard of them.

Why?

Black Rifle’s brand is unapologetically patriotic, pro-military, and pro-2nd Amendment.
Bones Coffee brand is creative, funny, and irresistible to fans of the Grateful Dead.
Jumpin Goat is… in Cleveland, Georgia.

What makes your brand so special?

Ask yourself these questions:

How old is my target customer?
Where do they live?
Are they male, female, both, other?
What does my customer do when they’re not drinking my coffee?
How do my customers feel when drinking the coffee? What are they doing, with whom are they drinking coffee?
Imagine someone has bought this blend for the first time - why did they buy it?
What type of person would not like this coffee and why?

Now write it in a single sentence.

Weak Example: “Anyone age 18-65, all genders, living in the United States who likes good coffee and how much energy my coffee gives them when they’re spending time at work or with family.”

This audience is too broad – is roughly 250 million people. While that sounds great, you will not stand out among the competition and consumers won’t feel a strong connection to your brand.

Strong Example: “Age 25-39 mothers of young children in the Northeastern US who drink my coffee for two minutes of peace in between diaper changes, chaos, breast pumps, child care, and partners who. Just. Don’t Get. It.”

This audience is focused – about 150,000. The coffee names are ripe for the picking (“3AM Formula” anyone?) and the ads practically write themselves. If you landed only 0.5% of this audience, you'd be selling over $20,000 of coffee every month.

Tight upfront focus makes every step easier and will yield dramatically better results.

Want to bounce some ideas around? Send your ideas to info@javamania.com and we’ll follow up with you with feedback, even get together on a call to discuss.