Don’t Waste Your Money On Branding These Mistakes!!
Let me tell you one thing, I am very passionate about branding and graphic design. I had made many mistakes while moving ahead in my journey. But in life or let’s say in my business profile life, I learnt many things from it. And here I am to share my knowledge with you. This knowledge will surely work for you to establish your brand and add more numbers in your bank balance.
Let’s See the biggest mistakes.
1) First Impression:
When you start your business on a small budget, time and money for branding may be the last thing for you. But believe me, it is a worthwhile investment for your business.
A logo is the first impression of your business. A logo represents your business everywhere. It should be very unique as you and your business.
For example, have you ever taken or watched an interview in your life? Even if you haven’t, you might have seen people around you saying that the first impression is the last. Just take an example, if you wear a dirty wrinkled shirt for any event, that impression of yours will look like a lazy person. Such as you just left your job or you didn’t have a job.
Once that impression is made on someone… it’s made!!! You can’t undo your first impression from anyone’s mind.
That same thing does apply to your businesses. If it’s difficult to read, wrong in alignment doesn’t suit your business profile then you are not making the good first impression. That moment can never be unturned.
And the main thing which I always suggest to anyone is that don’t buy readymade logos. Online purchased logos are available for all, an only brand name is different. I insist everyone when you want a logo for a business, hire a person especially for logo designing or let me help you to create your great first impression. I am here to dress up your business.
2) Don’t do it all yourself
I am a logo designer so I have expertise in graphics designing and how it can help you for branding. Let me tell you with an example, I rarely take photos, but I am not a photographer. I know how to focus and shoot but don’t know the science about ISO and aperture. So that time I will ask someone who has all the skills as a photographer and fits into my budget to do a photoshoot for my brand.
This same thing goes for your business. There is the area of branding which is handled by my own. But some areas are left for professionals who specialize in that area.
I know your next thought might be “But the designer is very expensive!”, trust me, outside there are plenty of designers available in your budget. Just ask with reference and you might find someone who works with you within your budget. Don’t do everything by yourself.
3) Me too Competition
I had seen many things in the last few years such as “ME TOO BRANDING”. You might have seen while surfing on the internet or social media seeing competition outside. I mean sponsored ads, blogs, videos, etc.
You might have thoughts of trying to emulate what they are doing and carry out that strategy on your business. DON’T DO IT!!!
Remember your branding should reflect your unique business and its values.
4) Using too many fonts
I have an addiction to collect and purchase fonts. Most of the designers like to collect fonts the same as me. We may never use it in your logo, even won’t use it in our personal design practice.
Having multiple fonts doesn’t mean, you should use your all favourite font in your branding designing. Using too many fonts gives complete disappointment and can destroy your design authenticity. The good rule of branding is to pick 2-3 great fonts according to your branding offerings and stick with them. Make sure the font should work together and give enough contrast to the reader’s eye.
Make sure you will not use any Comic Sans font family anywhere in your design and also always avoid using the generic fonts for your tagline, headline or any other design.
Kindly note just stay away from Comic Sans for anywhere in the design, do not use the generic font (generic font family. In CSS, a broad class of similar fonts is used in a prioritized list of fonts. Common generic font families include serif {such as Times New Roman, Bodoni, and Garamond), sans-serif (such as MS Arial, MS Verdana, and Univers), and monospace (such as Courier, MS Courier New, and Prestige)} on the logo, taglines, headlines, important stuff.
5) Rebranding
I have already rebranded my business before one year, that just put me back to square one position. When I launched my new branding and started promoting service messages and emails, etc. The response was not bad, but it’s fully representing my brand.
I am not saying you should never rebrand your business but when it’s a necessary rebrand and you think you established your brand well in the market, then only you might consider rebranding it. But don’t change your branding frequently otherwise, your audience will get confused with your purpose.
Every business takes time to develop a brand. If you change your branding unnecessarily you will not achieve desired growth. Once your target audience knows your brand then only you can experiment with your brand.
If you want to change your branding, first change your website layout, redesign your logo, visiting cards with new branding. Those changes are not costly. After that, if you really need to rebrand your business, it all depends upon the target audience.
6) Be clear in portraying your message
Do you know what is the mission of your business? If not, please define your mission first because this is very important for your business. If your business is a superhero, so what is your superpower?
7) Inconsistent Approach
Why consistency is important? consistency is a household name that is going to make a brand. For new leads and more revenue, you should maintain consistency in visuals and social messages. Your any mistake will cost you money.
While making brand strategies for your products, one must be consistent or regular with their approach by continuously following their mission statement.
You should know all the business inside out. Once you have that knowledge then you can say and create everything for your brand.
If you stand still without doing any branding for improving your brand, you are making the mistake of getting missing out from your market. Your inconsistent approach can destroy your market.
I have done my job to pass on some of the branding key success points for your business. Hope you implement it whenever you think about branding your business.
How can you avoid these mistakes?
Don’t do all the work yourself. That means to hire professionals according to your needs. This is the investment that makes more leads, more revenue and also promotes your business with less stress.. It will free up more time to do extra things for the business which can result in building your business.
Create your clear message and stick to it. Remember your brand story is a way to connect your audience to your business.
Give a chance to grow your brand. Don’t switch the brandings. When there is no longer any response to your business then rebrand your business and hit the market with new branding strategies.
Did you see any mistakes in your branding? So what are your plans to recover?