6 Branding Mistakes To Avoid

Branding isn’t an easy task. It is not just about uploading a logo and creating a website and calling it a day. Branding takes meticulous planning, hard work, and lots of research on various levels. One wrong move while creating your brand could cost you both your business and your market. Following are some mistakes that can be avoided while planning for your brand. 

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1. Not analyzed the competition

Whatever product or service you create, you are bound to have someone else who provides competition with similar products or services. Success of your brand depends on research of your competition. This includes studying their successes and failures; products and services; strategies and techniques. Keep a close eye on all their online presence and marketing material. If you don’t you are at risk of making something similar or your competitor could outrun you and dominate the market. Success lies in uniqueness. Stand out instead of blending in. 

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2. Going in without a strategy

There is no point in only creating a logo or website without a brand strategy. Brand aesthetics is just one part of brand strategy. Brand strategy is about clearly defining your brand’s purpose, its qualities and aligning it with your customers’ perception and experience. A good brand strategy is about knowing your brand in its entirety – niche, identity, vision, mission, goals, objectives, competitive landscape, market research, target audience, perception, etc. It ultimately helps your customers understand your brand better. 

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3. Identity Crisis

Much like personal identity, brand identity is a set of elements that come together to create a “personality” of a brand that helps customers remember you from the rest. It is inclusive of all visual aids - logo, colors, and everything it stands for – values, vision and mission, etc. The characteristics of your brand identity and your products/services need to be one. You cannot be portraying one thing and selling something else. Customers cannot connect with your brand if it doesn’t match what it says and what it sells. What you need is a brand guide to stay on track with all material related to your brand. 

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4. Inconsistency Costs 

Consistency is one of the main factors of a successful business. It builds trust, loyalty, familiarity and comfort with your customers. It needs to be shown all across the board – all social media platforms, wherever your brand is represented. The best way to be consistent is by having a style guide that is thorough yet simple to follow. Create a standardized rulebook for your employees to follow when it comes to branding materials. Failure to be consistent makes your brand look unprofessional, untrustworthy, and unreliable. 

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5. Who is your audience?

Why and how to connect to the right audience? Most often business owners think that they can sell to everyone in the market. They could but this means their brand is generic. If your brand is serving a particular niche that means your audience is also a particular category of the demography. It is crucial for your brand to research every aspect of your target audience so you can serve them better. Better service means better sales. Connect to your audience in a personal way - know their demands, expectations, likes, dislikes, age, location, income slab, preferences etc. You lose your audiences’ trust and credibility if you can’t connect with them. 

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6. Get the visuals right

In short words, whatever you see of a brand are brand visuals. The first form of communication with the audience is the visuals. Getting your brand visuals right is imperative as they don’t communicate verbally, it is images, to begin with. Your visuals are translating the meaning of your brand to your customers. Hence wrong visuals will give a wrong message. Your brand identity, aesthetics touchpoints, and what you’re selling need to be correlated to your brand visuals. Also, it is important to keep your visuals current so that your customers don’t lose touch with your brand and go for something more relevant. 

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