“Brands that do not see the future coming usually do not have one.” – Jean-Marie Dru
Branding used to be defined as a name, sign, design, slogan or symbol, or a combination of these elements, to differentiate one company, product, or service from another. Today, branding is even more important and complex.
A good branding strategy and process will not only get the target market to select the business over its competitors but also seeing the business or brand as the only choice and provider of a solution to their specific problems or needs. Branding helps businesses in clearly delivering their message, bridging connections between target consumers with a product or service. It helps confirm the credibility of a brand in the marketplace, motivate the customers to purchase and also create user loyalty.
Making sure to not make these critical branding mistakes in branding will be crucial for every businesses or brand who wants to be successful:
Related: 4 Simple Steps To Build A Strong Brand
1. Starting with a weak brand identity
Businesses need to make sure that the name of their business will live as long as their business does. It extremely crucial that businesses to be named weakly as it has a destructive potential of limiting the success and scope of what it represents. Business owners will need to invest resources such as time and money to develop a strong name and logo in the early days of establishing their brand.
Make sure to choose, register and protect a name that the business will use and grow with over years and decades. Do not forget the importance of implementing a strong, simple and unique logo that immediately identifies the face of the business. The logo should also be visually pleasing and reproduces well in all forms of communication.
2. Not differentiating the brand from its competitors
Often, business owners forget to create a distinguished character for their brand. This can heavily impact the preference of the customers in who, what and wear they would buy from and why. Show off the speciality of the business that causes its offering to excel over the competitors’ offering and build the business around that point of difference.
3. Failing to protect and defend the brand
Protection and boundaries is definitely necessary for the longevity of the brand. By not doing anything about boundaries in the usage of a brand’s name or identity, businesses allow outsiders to tamper with everything concerning it by doing nothing to set boundaries. File the brand name with in official and appropriate government offices and obtain brand trademarks in the specific industry of the brand. Do address every brand-usage infraction and enforce usage guidelines without fail.
4. Inconsistency
As time goes on, businesses might drift apart from the looks and messages and improvise here and there. Just like that, consistency goes out of the window and so does its credibility. It is important to insist on uniform presentation of the business logo and adhere to the brand promise. Prove it with every encounter that the customers have with your brand.
Stay true to the brand character and create as a base guideline to be followed by everyone involved with it. With these mistakes avoided, businesses can reach its peak potential in branding.
Related: The Importance of Brand Identity
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