10 Branding Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

Intro:

When you start your business, you can find yourself preoccupied with important tasks like customer acquisition, sales, overhead expenses, and other details as part of your management duties. As a result, you might find yourself putting off your branding efforts. Your business will market and sell things without a clear understanding of who you are and without a strong branding plan. This will affect how you interact with customers and more importantly, how your customers interact with your brand.

No matter how big or small, any company must create a distinct and recognizable brand identity. Your identity permeates every aspect of your company and serves as the distinctive expression of your brand. Brands with solid reputations enjoy a 31% better shareholder return, according to Clutch. These businesses have a more engaged workforce, this helps brands grow up to three times faster than their competitors. Now isn’t that something to strive for?

Here are 10 branding mistakes your business should avoid:

1. Attempting To Appeal To Everyone

No one should aim to be everything to everyone, and yes, this applies to branding too. When you try to satisfy everyone you end up satisfying no one. Your brand should have a framework that serves as a tool to understand your audience's personality so that you can develop a personality framework to appeal to who they are. This will help you understand your ideal customer. Your ideal customers are based on data and research and without understanding who your ideal customer is, your current customers will get confused and new customers will find it difficult to relate to your ambiguous brand.

2. Inconsistency Across Channels

Brand consistency is an essential trait your company must have. This is one of the things that will impact your business the most. Building consistency promotes familiarity, loyalty, and ultimately credibility. Be consistent in all of your interactions with your audience, including promotions, personality, and communication.

Coca-Cola is maybe the most consistent brand in history. In 130 years, its emblem has barely changed at all. Everyone is familiar with its festive Christmas advertisements and summer campaigns. Even after Pepsi notably triumphed in consumer taste testing, the brand has garnered such a high level of brand loyalty that no other drink can compete. In the current digital era, Coca-Cola has amassed a sizable following on social media, making it very simple to reach its target audience.

Once your branding is established, you must make sure that it is portrayed consistently throughout all of the platforms where your business is active. This includes print, corporate blog, TV, video, social media, events, PR, etc. It can be surprisingly simple to ensure consistency in the most obvious locations while forgetting to do so in less frequent situations or occurrences. Being inconsistent sends a confusing message to the public, and tarnishes your brand name. Ensure that everything your company issues, including bills and compliment slips, is consistent with your Instagram account. Take steps to guarantee that a culture of brand devotion and knowledge is prevalent among all employees, from the C-level to the mailing room. Well-developed brand guidelines will indubitably aid in this.

3. Not Using Social Media

Younger entrepreneurs can find this hard to believe, but you wouldn't believe how many well-established businesses brush aside the idea of having a TikTok or even a Facebook account because they lack the knowledge of how to transfer the ideas of their business and what they do in those platforms. Ignoring social media will only damage your brand and reduce your client reach.

A lot of social media blunders simply result from well-intentioned campaigns. For example, when Crocs and Cinnabon tried to pay tribute to David Bowie and Carrie Fisher, respectively, their insensitivity was amplified by their extensive social media reach. Sometimes, brands just don't devote enough time and resources to their social media campaigns. Maintaining multiple accounts can be daunting, but it shows your customers your concern for them, especially when you can quickly address their queries and grievances.

4. Copying Too Much Of The Competition

Almost nothing is new. Everything can be tracked down to an original concept or idea. Nonetheless, there are ways to be inspired by the competition without copying it.

Short turnaround times might occasionally result from designers underestimating the complexity of the work. Lack of time is a common justification used by designers when they steal a concept. This is unacceptable. Another reason comes as a result of industry newcomers participating in crowdsourcing contests to "win" a job (and the monetary prize that comes with it). The fact remains that this kind of conduct is detrimental to both businesses and designers. Make sure to save and properly identify any inspiring design you see while browsing the internet for ideas, this will help you as a basis to not do the same.

Customers are becoming less and less brand loyal. The cause? Companies are falling short of their promises. Developing a branding plan that isn't intimately related to who you are as a company and more importantly, who are you serving, can be very damaging to your brand-client loyalty. That’s why is very dangerous to be copying other brands without deeply knowing whom they’re serving. Genuinely knowing your target audience will not only make your brand more distinctive, but it will also guarantee that you remain true to your target audience. As a result, you'll gain their trust, and they'll be more inclined to purchase from you.

5. Your Brand Message Doesn't Align With Your Representation

A firm expanding is generally a good thing. However, as you grow, be sure to cultivate a positive relationship with your employees and audience alike.

Never assume that your staff knows off by heart what your brand stands for, it doesn't matter how big or how long your business has been in the marketplace. This is unfortunately a typical error that many business owners make when they claim that new workers have “all the tools necessary” to become familiar with and comprehend the company's brand vision. Your employees need to be the first to understand your brand message and your vision. According to a survey, 30% of your consumers are more likely to believe what your employees say. However, only 19% of your customers will believe the branded content you post on social media, and only 11% will believe what the CEO of the firm says. This is critical to understand for your brand message to be successful.

When it comes to cultivating a positive relationship with your employees and audience, the best approach is to maintain a distinctive brand identity that your devoted customers would love and recognize. When change comes to shove, accept it, don’t fight it. Inform your customers of any brand-related adjustments you anticipate your brand will be making. Retain everything about your brand that made things work before and dispose of anything not worth having. Don’t forget, quality and substance matter.

Change can be daunting for businesses that have been a while in the marketplace. Here's some advice. It can be challenging to strike the perfect balance between old and new, modern and classic. Nevertheless, if your brand has been around for a while, you should consider the possibility that you have a large following of customers who adore you for your classic, comfortable, and familiar look. There’s an essence there that your customers are accustomed to that shouldn't be lost, if possible it should be enhanced. Re-brands that deviate too far from their roots can fail. Think about the 2010 Gap rebranding failure. The famous logo of the American apparel juggernaut was eventually exchanged for the brand name and a small blue box over the final letter. After six days, Gap decided to abandon the new logo after backlash on Facebook and Twitter.

Proceed with caution and conduct thorough research before you revamp your venerable brand. Most rebranding failures can eventually be saved, but it usually costs a ton of money.

6. Not Having Brand Guidelines

This is one of the most frequent mistakes beginner designers make. Don't let a designer put all the effort into designing a gorgeous logo only to let people use it however they like. It damages your brand. According to a 2019 report from the web-based desktop publishing program Lucidpress, inconsistent branding turns off potential clients. According to the study, 24.5% of participants agreed that inconsistent branding could cause consumer uncertainty and jeopardize a brand's overall reputation for reliability. When creating Brand Guidelines, have the following in mind:

• Correct Logo Size & Proportions

• Correct Logo Usage

• Color palette Direction

• Typography Direction

• Images & pictures

• Symbols & Icons

• Writing Style, Voice, and Tonality

It is simpler for you to arrange your material on your website, social media pages, and other platforms when you have clearly defined brand rules. Create an internal branding style guide to achieve unified, consistent messaging across all channels.

7. Neglect Customer Experience

Your logo design and the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives are crucial. But equally important is how your target audience responds to them. How do your customers feel? Does your message get through to them? Customer satisfaction is always important and additional attention to customer experience might avoid mistakes that can occur if you are unable to respond to a client's question quickly. This can be avoided if you put a chatbot on your website, for instance, or make it a priority to reply to emails within 24 hours. You can additionally enhance your customers' experiences by doing the following:

• Sending newsletters regularly

• Commenting on your social media pages and answering comments

• Gaining knowledge via client reviews

• Polling, Research, or Interviewing

8. Using Bad Copy

Using bad copy is one of those things people don’t usually talk about and is one of the most important. Although branding is mostly a visual undertaking, you must not ignore the language and tone in which your brand will embed its message. Even though copywriting may have a little 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 core messages, mission statements, taglines, and content. Excellent copywriting significantly impacts how people perceive your brand in terms of its authenticity, reputation, and trustworthiness in addition to increasing sales and conversions.

9. Target The Wrong Audience

Targeting the wrong people or the incorrect audience can result in no sales and no engagement. After all, if you're aiming at everyone, your brand message is going to no one. To prevent this from happening, target the appropriate audience. When determining your target market, think about the following questions:

1. Who are your typical customers? Who is your ideal one?

2. What excites them? What draws them in?

3. What are their hobbies or passions?

4. What makes them tick or upsets them?

5. Where do they live?

6. Any particular demographic?

7. How old are they?

8. What is their annual income?

This will help create your buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customers based on data and research. Without understanding your ideal customer, your current customers will get confused and new customers will find it difficult to relate to your ambiguous brand.

The best method to connect with your customers in the modern digital age is by being close to them. You must build trust and communicate with empathy for your customers to see the value in what you're delivering. The tone of voice in which its message is delivered is also really important. An audience that resonates with the tone and language will be far more open to the message of the brand. You must be aware of the audience you are speaking to before you begin selling or even pitching. You need to be aware of their needs, expectations, points of identification, and preferred brands.

It helps when you craft a story that aligns with their journey, where they’re coming from, where they’re going, and the challenges they’ve been through. They will be completely in tune with whatever message your brand intends to deliver.

10. Your Company Logo

When a customer searches for you online or sees your billboard on the side of the road, they see your logo as the face of your business. They don’t know about branding or messaging or anything, so make sure your logo is simple and memorable. Enough to stick in the minds of your possible clients. Your logo doesn’t need to represent all you stand for or communicate the essence of your brand, that’s what your branding efforts are for. Your logo needs to stand out. If you believe your logo might be antiquated, take it to a professional, it might be time for a rebrand. If you have a strong powerful brand, it might just need small tweaks here and there to refresh the image.

Take logos for brands like Coca-Cola and Apple, for example, they have seen alterations throughout time, but not so much that it loses the personality that makes them distinctive.

They both still have the essence they’ve been cultivating for so long. You need to get feedback from the appropriate people, that’s why when it comes to logos, consider your options before accepting assessments from friends, family, coworkers, and relatives who might give you feedback without knowing or understanding your company's pain points and needs. We believe that you should always hire a professional. A bad logo screams, a great one whispers…

Conclusion:

As previously mentioned, branding is more than just a logo or a tagline. Everything you stand for, including the voice of your business and the type of material you produce, is part of your brand. You will find an audience when you have a competitive advantage and a unique style.