An essential part of building a successful, lasting business is branding. Your brand is how consumers will identify with you and differentiate you in the marketplace. Simply put, branding is the personality of your product, service or organization, so it should reflect the promise you are making to your customer. Branding serves as the foundation for all of your marketing efforts, so it’s important to do the research and establish clear and concise guidelines for how your company will be presented.
Avoid these common mistakes:
- Overcomplicating your identity or message: The main goal of branding is to build value and recognition among your target audience. People are flooded with branding messages these days, so make it easy for them. When deciding on a name, tagline or logo design, make sure it clearly communicates who you are, what you do and what you stand for. Your brand identity should speak for itself, be easily recognizable and memorable. This will actually save you time and money moving forward, as your marketing efforts can focus on explaining to customers what you can do for them instead of explaining what you do period.
- Lack of Commitment: Once a brand identity is determined, you, your employees and everything your company presents should reinforce your brand. You’ve got to be willing to put in the work and make sure that your brand guidelines are established, communicated and followed. From logo fonts to brand colors to delivering on taglines, your branding efforts won’t be successful unless you are committed to them. Proudly display your logo on all communications, invoices, receipts, emails and proposals. If you say you’re the fastest, be the fastest. Be committed to your brand on the inside and out.
- Inconsistency: Brand loyalty and value is built over time, and the more consistent you are, the more successful you will be. People have to see and experience your brand a lot before it resonates with them. Once you’ve decided on a brand identity, stick with it and maintain its integrity throughout everything you do, including logos, taglines and marketing messages. Changing too often will lead to confusion and a loss of the connection you’ve started building. If rebranding is needed, make sure you have a good plan for communicating this to customers.
- Not keeping your promises: This goes along with being committed but requires its own specific address because local businesses in particular live and die by customer loyalty. As we said, your brand should imply a promise to your customer. Superior customer service, fast turnaround time, accessibility, free consultation, whatever your promise — be sure you can and do deliver on it. A key component of building a brand is building trust. It won’t matter how well your logo is designed or how recognizable your tagline; if people don’t trust you, they won’t be using your product or service.
Branding can be fun, but it is also complex. If possible, consult a professional who is trained to avoid these and other missteps while helping ensure that your identity is both unique and protected. In the long run, this valuable insight will pay for itself.