10 Common Business Branding Mistakes

Small and medium-sized business owners carry much responsibility on their shoulders. With so much responsibility, many business owners overlook an essential business asset, their brand.

Today I’ve created a list of 10 common mistakes many businesses make in branding. But first, to recap, let’s review what branding is. As the brand strategist and author Marty Neumeier said, “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or organization.” Our number one goal with branding is to influence our audience’s gut feeling through strategic graphic design, photography, messaging, and copywriting.

Common mistakes:

1. Ignoring their brand
   One of the biggest branding mistakes a business can make is letting its brand run on autopilot. If you don’t carefully craft a strong brand message, your audience will create their own. Remember, one of the key business branding goals is to help influence your audience’s gut feeling about your business.
2. Failing to differentiate
   To stand out, you need to differentiate, both in your service or product offering and in your brand’s message. Your brand should be different enough from the rest of the crowd to stand out and catch people’s attention.
3. Pushing the edge too far
   It is important to differentiate; however, it’s possible to go too far in the other direction and present a message that is so edgy it creates discomfort. Be different, but not uncomfortable.
4. Lacking consistency
   Consistency across all your brand touchpoints is crucial to creating a memorable and effective brand. The design of every piece should feel cohesive, as well as photography styles, type and color palettes, tone of voice, and copywriting style. Additionally, your brand identity should be consistent with your business’ personality.
5. Straying from Who They Are
   Similarly to the above, your brand and its visual identity need to be consistent with who you really are. It’s easy to dream and wish you were something we aren’t and can’t be. You might look at your heroes and want to brand yourself like them, but it will hurt you in the long run if it’s not true to your company and its culture.
6. Not Considering The Customer
   A good brand puts their customer first. Nowadays, customers care less about the features and options of a product than how they feel when they interact with a company and its products or service. Consider the needs and wants of your customer.
7. Ignoring Customer Service.
   As an extension of the previous mistake, a business can have a well-designed visual brand identity, but if they don’t provide equally good customer service, it will be in vain. While the visuals are essential, don’t forget about your customer experience. Think about how your representatives interact with the customer. Look at your customer journey and strategize ways to smooth it out.
8. Trying to Appeal to Too Large A Crowd
   We want customers. Our business needs them to survive. Because of this, a common mistake many companies make is trying to appeal to everyone. Find who your ideal clients are and brand yourself in a way that appeals to them. Create visual content that appeals to the right people.
9. Not Setting Visual Standards
   All of our touchpoints need to be “on brand.” One of the things that will help you maintain a consistent brand image is a Brand Style Guide. Your brand designer can create this for you. A Brand Style Guide will include brand colors, type styles, logo usage guidelines, and photography style direction. Brand Style Guides provide a quick reference for designers and anyone working with your brand.
10. Forgetting about the power of photography. I’ve seen businesses with a well-thought-out logo and brand identity that forgot one very important thing: photography. As they say, a “photo is worth a thousand words”. Great photography will elevate your brand. Your photography needs to communicate your brand’s message just as the other components of your visual identity. Your brand is only as strong as its weakest link. Don’t let your photography hold it back.

Are you making any of these common branding mistakes? I hope this list will assist you in growing your brand.

Need assistance with growing your brand? Lyndon Gehman is a brand identity designer at Lyndo Design. His passion is helping companies create engaging and effective brands. Visit his website at www.lyndo.design.