Major Branding Mistakes To Avoid

Branding is not an easy task. It requires lot of meticulous and continuous work to create a brand that is unique and lively. It is a never ending job and needs involvement of every platform like social media, emails, newsletters and your websites, to reach out to the audience.

You can never know what is the correct thing to do, when you start something new, but if you know what NOT to do, your success is half achieved. There are so many common branding mistakes that can easily be avoided. Here are the one that I have listed for you.

1. Not Having Brand Strategy

You need to dive deep into your field and understand your brand objective and competition. Develop a brand strategy and align your vision with customer’s requirements.

You have to successfully share with your audience why your brand is special and different from others. In other words, it’ll be tough to develop brand loyalty. From the tagline to the mission statement, be clear in your messaging what you do and why it’s important for your customers.

2. Negligence In Logo Design

Logo is the most recognisable feature of your brand. It is one of the main aspect of your brand. Choosing a logo casually could really cost your business and changing it later is difficult especially when you have not fully established yourself in the market.

So it is important to select it right at the first place. Use legible font, correct color combination, avoid unnecessary slogans and use a symbol that best matches with your business.

3. Not Proofreading Before Publishing

Neglecting to review your content before publishing it, could tarnish your brand reputation. Avoid grammatical and spelling mistakes, and do not use offensive content. It’s challenging to grab people’s attention nowadays, but you still want your brand to be noticed for the right reasons. You can use spell checkers but they do have limitations.

So it is advisable to have a copy editor so that he or she can make sure the grammar is flawless and your brand guidelines are followed to the letter.

4. Following Popular trends

It’s crucial to stay updated with design system and trends to look fresh and relevant but understand that trends come and go. Trends come and go, it’s often better to stick to your brand and focus on overwhelming your customers with value, instead. 

5. Not targeting the right audience

Before starting branding process, you must know your target audience. Where they are, what they do, their age group, their lifestyles, what are their needs, etc.

If you don’t connect with your customers in a personal way, you’ll fall behind competitors that do so.

Some great ways to further your connection include:

• A weekly or monthly newsletter including customer stories, and features
• Responding to comments on your social channels
• Showcasing customer testimonials on your website
• Quick response times and solid customer support
• Responding to online reviews
• Welcome people of myriad backgrounds
• Partner with local media and influencers
• Sponsor local events related to your business or donate to local charities 
• Practice cultural sensitivity

6. Not Having a Crisis Management Plan

There are always bumps in the road. No business is completely safe from PR and branding mishaps. Crises can negatively affect your brand in the long run. 

What if your website goes down during one of your biggest sales. What if you encounter shipping problems. You get the picture. If everything goes wrong for whatever reason, the way your brand handles the crisis will have a big impact on how the public views your company. Communicate the solution you’re working on and be present, so people don’t think you’re trying to hide.

7. Not Being Consistent

If you’re inconsistent, you can’t build trust with you customer.You’re going to look different every time and you’re going to break that trust. The best way to stay consistent with your brand is to create style guides like having the same colors, and the same logos on every single medium you use. The rules on how to use your brand assets will ensure consistency every time your logo or other visuals need to be used, whether it be print or digital.

A brand personifies your business and gives a living identity to your company. It is what that keeps your business in people’s mind. So be careful in selecting your brand and avoid these mistakes.