Branding for a business is important, yet a lot of times we see that business butcher their branding by making common mistakes. Mistakes that cost them a lot. A small business with less budget can sabotage their growth if their branding is not right. Or other businesses looking to rebrand themselves can make the same mistakes.
Most entrepreneurs either don’t understand the vitalness of branding, or they stop putting efforts in it once they start seeing results. Both are wrong and can lead to problems and downfall of the business. To not make any branding mistake, knowing what this word means is imperative.
Branding is not just giving a name or logo or tagline to your business. It is every one of those elements that shows why your business is different from others, and why should people choose it over others?
Knowing what branding mistakes, you should avoid will help you create a great and ever-lasting brand. Let’s look at the common mistakes that you should avoid.
Mistake 1: Working with a brand identity that is cheap
The most vital element of a brand identity is a logo. If you don’t make use of the best available tool or higher a professional to design the same, it will come out looking cheap. When you pay pennies for a logo design, you get a low-quality logo which will not aid you in getting new clients or customers.
Hiring a freelancer or designing a logo with the help of Canva where experts provide instructions is okay as long as you don’t expect this to happen for free or $2. If you want the best work, you need to invest a bit more in it. Also, make sure you know what your objective is behind the brand-goals, mission, aim, and so on. A logo conveys all these, and the designer should know about all this.
Mistake 2: Not giving proper training to your employees
Your employees are the best branding tools you have. They are talking and walking billboards through word-of-mouth or their social media and so on can help build a brand identity for your business. Thus, you must train your employees for the same. Make sure they have a business card which has the logo and business name and tagline so that whenever they meet a potential client, they are ready.
Moreover, reward them when they do help with creating a brand for you, this will incentivize them to do more in this direction.
Mistake 3: Not creating a brand strategy first
Some businesses head-dive into designing a logo, which is not the right approach. It is hard to define a brand, its mission, and its customer after designing a logo. Thus, the first step towards branding is coming up with a strategy. Look at your customers and competitors, find out what they want and what the competitors are not providing them. Once you know all this, it will become easier for you to design a logo and other elements necessary for branding.
Mistake 4: Not differentiating your brand from others
The worst mistake you can do is create a brand that is similar to others. If you have nothing new to offer or don’t have a unique feature, why would a client or a customer leave other brands to buy your products? Design of the branding elements matters the most for this, and to get that right, you need to know the objective of the brand.
You don’t want to create a brand that is nothing like you or the products you want to sell. So, look at your customer, your brand, your competitors to figure out all this.
Mistake 5: Not tracking branding efforts
Another huge mistake that most businesses make is to not record the efforts of their branding scheme. For instance, if a new client calls you, the first thing you need to do is ask how they got your number. It may be through your website, social media, business card, or they may have heard about your through a friend or so.
Knowing these details and recording them is essential. Maybe the medium through which they came to know about you was the one you weren’t putting more efforts on. It will help you make sure you focus your marketing budget on all essential mediums.
Mistake 6: Going overboard with brand extension
Every business wants to grow. But you do need to know where to stop. If you go overboard with your brand extension, it will not have the desired result and you may end up losing a lot of money and customers. For instance, Heinz the ketchup giant extended from this to mustards, and that was fine. But they went overboard with disposable panties and pens and so on. Totally off-brand!
Branding is the reason people see your business and want to use your products and service. Invest good time and money in it because if you don’t, you won’t succeed.
