Common Branding Errors You Don’t Want to Make

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Effective branding makes for a successful business, but no company is perfect. Be sure to avoid these common branding mistakes at all costs!

Branding is a critical part of any marketing campaign. It serves as your brand identity, the very foundation of brand recognition. Think McDonald's and its golden arches or Nike with its swoosh logo. Their logo, colour scheme, and typography are familiar to us because we have a history with these brands. We grew up knowing these brands through experience. That's effective branding.

Effective branding is all about making the best first impression, establishing history with customers, building an excellent reputation, and ultimately, attracting loyal customers.

Think about it, without a brand's core identity, how can you set yourself apart from the competition? How can clients differentiate your business from others? It will be hard to recognize or recall a brand if it doesn't have any distinguishing marketing elements. 

Of course, no business is perfect. Sometimes we make simple mistakes that are hurting our brand. If you want to establish a successful brand, you have to market your business correctly. When building a brand, avoid these common mistakes: 

 

No Defined Branding Strategy

You can't go anywhere if you don't know where you are going. Just like anything in life, branding needs a defined strategy. Otherwise, you won't achieve the desired result. And branding is more than just brainstorming for the visuals; you have to cover all bases. 

You need to conduct in-depth research about the industry you're in, define your ideal clients, and determine your competitors' strategic positions to develop the most effective branding strategy. You should have a clear idea of your business goals and create marketing messages that resonate with your target audience.

Essentially, do not focus too much on the aesthetics without perfecting your brand strategy. Be sure that your vision is in line with customer experience.

 

Inconsistent Branding

At its very essence, the concept of branding is all about building familiarity with your target audience. Familiarity leads to trust. You want to establish a brand that incites positive feelings because clients have a history with your business. And nothing kills a good marketing campaign quite like inconsistent branding.

Inconsistent branding creates confusion among your target audience. If you are not sticking to your own brand identity, people will have trouble setting your business apart from other businesses. This could lead to inconsistent experience and turn off even your most loyal customers. 

When piecing together your marketing campaign, stick to your branding standards. For example, if you've decided on a specific typography, logo, and colour scheme, do not change these design elements in the middle of your marketing campaign. This will muddle your marketing message, confuse a lot of people, and hurt your brand. Be consistent, be familiar.

 

Copying Other Brands

If you think that copying a famous brand would bring attention to your brand, it won't. No one likes a copycat, and most brands that rip other brands off do not leave a positive impression on people. You don't want to be known as a business that tries to be what it does not so avoid copying other brands. You want your brand to stand out so that potential clients could tell your business apart from the competition. 

While brainstorming for your branding and marketing campaign, assess successful brands – including the competition – to get an idea of how you'd like to implement your marketing campaign. You can draw inspiration from brands you admire but never copy a brand and then expect the same level of success. 

 

Settling for Cheap Branding 

While it's not necessary to spend a small fortune on branding, it will require some investment. Cheap branding looks, well, cheap, and if you're trying to make a great impression on potential clients, they might be put off with tacky or unpolished design elements. 

Remember, you get precisely what you pay for. A cheap logo will look cheap. If you made the logo yourself using an online logo maker, it will show. A cheap-looking logo might not attract a lot of clients, especially if your industry is obsessed with aesthetics. You cannot expect excellent results if you're not willing to set aside a budget for the branding. 

That's not to say you should spend a lot of money on branding; you can implement specific strategies without emptying your savings. Our advice is to spend money on the best design elements you can afford. That goes for the website, the logo, the typography, and all other elements related to your business. 

 

Using the Wrong Tone

When thinking about branding, most of us focus too much on the visuals, the design elements that we see on our screen. But branding goes beyond the aesthetic. There is more it than the logo and colour scheme! Getting the tone right is also a critical part of a successful marketing campaign. The right tone helps connect to the right people – your target audience.

Talking in a loose, informal way may put off people who are searching for a trusted bank or financial company, for example. That's the reason why most finance-based websites have a formal tone. If you're marketing for teens or young adults, on the other hand, it's not a good idea to use an overly formal tone. The message might not connect to your ideal clients.

So think of how you would speak to your target audience, should it be done formally or informally? How should you structure your content and social media interactions in a way that makes your brand relatable to your readers or followers? Think about the demographics of the people you are speaking to, what do they want to hear? Once you've found the answer to these questions, apply these into your marketing message. 

 

Branding could make or break your business. If you want to start your business in the best way possible, you have to get the branding right the first time! And with these tips, you can create a trustworthy brand that gets a lot of attention from the right people. 

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