Five Common Branding Mistakes Businesses Make (Big and Small)
There are endless articles and resources that focus on how to build a successful brand. However, these are 5 common mistakes that even the biggest organizations make from time to time. As small business owners and entrepreneurs, it’s easy to miss these common errors when you’re responsible for everything from SEO to e-mail marketing to bookkeeping. Here’s a quick checklist to make sure these 5 mistakes aren’t hurting your own brand.
Not recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses. This is a really tough one. We are often blind to our own weaknesses, but, most of us know what we’re really good at! So start there - with what you know you are great at. Once you establish your strengths (for example, copywriting and SEO) think about the other aspects of your business that need to be done, but perhaps aren’t getting the expertise or attention they deserve (such as your website design, book-keeping, or marketing content). We often don’t enjoy doing things that don’t come to us naturally - so that’s a super good indication that bookkeeping or on-brand marketing content might also be a big weakness for you. It might be time to look into outsourcing these areas of your business to professionals. Identify where you would see the most immediate return on your investment (for example, if you know you get lots of leads whenever you consistently post on Instagram, but you’re not great at consistently posting on Instagram), and start there! Whenever there are inconsistencies in your business (such as how frequently you post, or the quality of the content you post) - it can negatively affect your brand.
Impatience. You might have a crystal clear vision of what you want your personal or business brand to look like, but until you invest the time and energy into portraying that vision into every aspect of your brand, it will only live in your head! Getting to the stage where your audience can instantaneously identify your brand from one post or photo takes a lot of time and effort - this doesn’t just happen overnight. So even though it may seem so far off to get to this stage, the key is to just keep at it. Consistency and keeping your eye on that goal of immediate brand recognition will help you to stay motivated. One day you will be able to look back and see that all your hard work and investments totally paid off!
Not having an ideal client or audience defined. Every image you share, blog post you write, and announcement you make should be speaking directly to your target audience. Ideally, you will be speaking directly to a pre-determined “ideal client” - whether this is a real life person you’ve worked with in the past and absolutely loved working with, or a fictional character you’ve created. Having this individual clearly defined helps to really target and hone your messaging. Without this person, your messaging can come across as inconsistent, and your brand can appear to lack direction. In an ideal world, when your future clients read your posts or view your images, they will feel as though your speaking directly to them or sharing an image that was meant just for them!
Low Quality Content. This is a big one, and I’ve seen this mistake over and over again, particularly in the small business world. You may have invested tons of money and energy into your actual product or service, but if every piece of content you put out into the world doesn’t match the level of professionalism you’ve poured into your actual offering, you’re damaging your brand and jeopardizing your business! Photos are a particularly big offender for this category. People have become such discerning consumers in our modern world, and one boring or dated stock photo on an Info page, or poor quality headshots on your About page can be the nail in your coffin when they are deciding whether or not they want to spend their money with you. It’s truly better to have no photo at all than a pixelated, poorly lit, or generic image - as all these come across as unprofessional, lazy, or even scammy! You definitely don’t want your ideal client questioning how legitimate your business is.
Not showing up in your own branding! I’ve talked about this before and I will surely talk about it again - one of the biggest strategies you can implement right now to help your brand is to show up as your very own ambassador. People connect with other people most easily, and who better for your audience to connect with than the expert in your business - you! It can feel so scary at first to show your face to what seems like the entire world, especially if you are on the shy side. But the very best and most simple marketing strategy that is a proven winner time and time again, is to simply tell your story. People’s stories are naturally interesting because our stories are all totally unique and original to us - no two of us are the same. Help your audience connect with your story (and with you), by showing up as frequently as you can in your online content.
