Your brand represents your mission, so it’s critical that you construct it carefully and purposefully. A brand was never successfully developed by just posting a nice logo and some short text on social media. Brands must devote a great deal of time and energy to developing a true identity.
It is necessary to conduct research, identify competitors, and communicate with knowledgeable experts. Every company should understand what branding is and why it is important. Errors are inevitable whether you’re launching a brand-new company or already have one up and running. Here are 10 blunders that brands make, that you would be better off avoiding.
1. Confusion between the terms marketing and branding.
Oh my, this is a tough one. Making other people aware of your brand is what marketing is all about. Branding is identifying exactly who or what your business is. Although there is a lot of overlap and they are closely related, failing to understand the differences prevents you from doing either of them well. Still, flummoxed? Here’s a bit of advice: focus on branding initially, then marketing.
2. Failure to do competitive research.
Listen, if you have a new business, this is very crucial. Understanding what well-established brands in your field have done, where they have succeeded and failed, and how you may give your brand an edge, is made possible by conducting market research on the competitors. Your investigation ought to cover goods, services, target markets, websites, and social media platforms. If you choose not to, this could mess you up in two different ways: one, you won’t be able to evaluate the competition accurately, and second, you won’t be able to replicate a competitor’s techniques without fully comprehending them.
3. Associating branding with only the logo.
Well… a very classic one. Even though the two are commonly confused, branding is much more than just design. Branding is more than simply a few brand assets, such as business cards or even a logo (don’t get me wrong — logos are vital), but branding is the mental act of establishing your firm, not just generating some attractive designs in the corporate colors.
4. Taking advice from the wrong people.
Not entirely your fault actually. You’ll need to get input from the correct people depending on the type of product or service you want to offer and the market you want to enter. Using only good reviews as your sources will not help you define or measure acceptable goals. Friends, families, colleagues, and relatives may give you nice feedback regardless of the circumstances, so consider twice before taking it. For any new brand, the greatest venue for reviews encompasses both social networking sites and customer reviews.
Also read: Strengthening Your Brand Image: Why Consistency Is The Key To Cultivating A Brand
5. Inconsistency.
Your business will be greatly impacted by brand consistency. Building consistency promotes recognition, trust, and ultimately respect. Be consistent in all of your interactions with your customers, including advertisements, personalities, and communication. Coca-Cola, for instance, maybe the most trusted brand in history. In 130 years, its emblem rarely changed at all. Everyone is familiar with its festive Christmas advertisements and summer ads featuring sunshine and fun. Even after Pepsi successfully excelled in consumer taste testing that was conducted in the dark, no other drink can compete with Coca-Cola for consumer devotion. In the current digital era, Coca-Cola has amassed a sizable following on social media, making it very simple to reach its target demographic no matter where they are.
6. Being excessively cautious.
Or maybe known as playing safe. A business that over-safe-guards its branding is at the other extreme of this range. It will be quite difficult to get a customer base if your brand lacks anything intriguing, exceptional, or distinctive. Plenty of competitor research will help you locate a niche and identify any shortcomings in your competitor’s product that you might be able to fill. When looking for differentiation, try not to veer too much to the other side, but also look for something that will let you stand on your two legs.
7. Operating without a backup plan.
Plan B is always a must-have. Many organizations realize that once a brand is established, it will take care of on its own. That is completely false nowadays. To deliver greater quality and adjust to the shifting needs of the market, you should continuously refine and change your services. Not every branding strategy will be successful on its first try. You must be prepared with a backup plan in those situations to ensure a quick recovery. It’s not simple to run a brand. However, you must always remember that your company consists of a lot more than its goods and services. Your ability to influence client experience will determine your level of success. Your brand identity is based on this.
8. Ignoring brand guidelines.
Most new brands won’t even have this. Keep in mind to take out your brand guidelines as security once you’ve achieved the key milestone of developing your brand. They’ll be a huge assistance to any outside experts you hire to aid with marketing, advertising, visual design, product design, and other tasks as well as assisting to maintain consistency and authenticity across teams, divisions, platforms, and assets within. Consistency can be relatively simple to maintain in the most obvious situations while being overlooked in less common situations or activities. Make sure everything your company issues, from thank-you cards to bills, is consistent with all your social media feeds. Make efforts to check that all individuals, from the C-level to the executives, have the same mindset of brand identity and awareness.
9. Being overly trend-focused.
Highly anticipated trends in style emerge every year, and while it’s acceptable to utilize them as a starting point or as inspiration, imitating them literally or going all-in might appear desperate and feel dated quickly. Jumping from one trend to another is likewise a no-no since it exhibits the same kind of inconsistency that i previously mentioned. In order for your brand to stay there for a while, it is preferable to create a fine balance that will hold up.
10. Overlooking the copy.
Although branding is mostly a visual undertaking, you must not ignore the message when focusing on visual communication. Although copywriting might have less impact on your branding, it is still quite significant and merits professional evaluation. The written word serves as the foundation for all critical brand elements, including key messages, the mission of the company, taglines, and content. Excellent copywriting has a significant impact on how people perceive your brand in terms of its originality, credibility, and reliability in addition to increasing sales and conversions.
Conclusion
So, you’ve got it, then. Ten classic, yet preventable, ways that companies ruin their brands and hamper progress. While many of them can lead your brand off course after several years or even decades in existence, some are riskier when they are being planned. Your brand should remain secure both today and for many years to come if you keep these errors at the forefront of your attention. Although branding is difficult and frequently takes time, if you persevere and maintain a positive attitude, you should succeed in building a powerful brand that will guide your business well into the future.
