Whether you’re working alone or collaborating with one of the best creative design agencies your city has to offer, building an effective brand is an essential aspect of any business. It’s what sets you apart from your competitors and helps you connect with your customers.
However, many businesses make common mistakes when it comes to branding, hurting their image and reputation. Below are five of the most critical mistakes to avoid.
- Choosing a bad name
Although a generic name like “Jeff’s Trucks” might be useful, it’s not memorable. All too often, people forget bland names, causing the businesses behind those names to be overlooked.
For example, when The Hansen Natural Company developed a 16-oz. energy drink to compete with Red Bull, they named it “Hansen’s Natural Energy Pro.” It didn’t take off. They rebranded to “Monster” energy drink, and the rest is (highly profitable) history.
To choose a good name, consider your overall marketing strategy. Then, brainstorm monikers that encapsulate the purpose, identity, and promise of your business while avoiding clichés.
- Targeting the wrong audience
Understanding your target audience is essential to effective business branding. Knowing your audience’s needs, expectations, and values makes branding and messaging a lot easier. Conversely, not knowing these factors makes it a lot more difficult. Take Colgate, for example. In the mid-1980s, the toothpaste company tried to market frozen lasagna. It didn’t go well.
To avoid targeting the wrong audience, conduct market research to identify potential customers, create buyer personas, and tailor your branding accordingly. Then, speak your audience’s language, craft a brand personality that resonates, and use imagery that’s familiar to them.
- Relying on weak visuals
Just like generic names, weak visuals are quickly forgotten. In a highly competitive attention economy, “quickly forgotten” is a fatal mistake. To avoid being forgotten, create logos, graphics, and other visual designs that grab audience attention and align with your marketing strategy.
Consider Geico’s endearing gecko. The gecko’s fun personality creates a mood that conveys Geico’s values and products, leading to countless memorable ads and a huge following on YouTube.
- Relying too much on trends
Incorporating trends can certainly expand your brand presence. However, relying on them solely will hinder the strength of your brand identity. Since trends and fads come and go, anchoring your brand to something so fleeting can all too often result in a loss of customers, revenue, and a sense of meaning once the trend inevitably fades away. Furthermore, over-reliance on trends can signal to your audience that your brand lacks a larger purpose.
That being said, completely ignoring trends isn’t the way to go either. Instead, focus on developing a central, timeless brand while occasionally embracing trends that align with your overall identity.
- Being inconsistent
Consistency in business branding fosters a sense of familiarity, loyalty, and credibility. If a brand constantly changes its tone of voice, it risks losing that sense of familiarity and credibility that makes customers comfortable and loyal.
Coca-Cola is keenly aware of the power of consistency in branding—despite being around for over 130 years, they’ve barely made any changes to their instantly recognizable logo. A cohesive brand identity that stretches across social media posts, customer emails, PR releases and more, makes customers feel like they’re dealing with a single, familiar entity.
Branding is an essential aspect of any business, but many companies make some of the five major mistakes outlined above. By avoiding them, you can develop a strong, cohesive brand that accurately represents your business and helps you connect with customers.
