3 Branding Mistakes That Will Make You or Break You

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3 Branding Mistakes That Will Make You or Break You

Just post a couple Tweets, run an email campaign, blog and vlog a little, and your company should be fine, right? Not necessarily.

While your marketing strategy is a huge fundamental to your brand, if it is inconsistent, your brand is sure to suffer.

This is but one branding mistake you need to be aware of. Read on to learn more about branding mistakes to watch out for and what you can do to ensure your brand survives and strengthens.

1. Not Knowing Who Your Target Audience Is

Not knowing your target audience will make a huge dent on your brand. Your company could try to market to too wide of an audience, watering down what it represents in an attempt to appease everyone. At the same time, too narrow, and product sales could take a turn for the worse.

What to Do?

This is by far one of the most important fundamentals to know: Know your target audience. In other words, know who you want to be drawn to your brand.

How old are they? What are their hobbies? What pain points do they have that your brand helps to address?

Create a buyer persona to gain more awareness, as well as conduct extensive research on your target audience’s shopping habits, how they consume information, and how they relate to products (such as going with a coffee mug…) and/or services.

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2. Not Know What Your Brand Represents

What is your brand about? What message does your brand say? If you are unsure, at its worse, your brand could be implying a message that is completely opposite to what your company represents.

This may be the case if the tone and visual components are inconsistent or you fail to conduct beta testing.

What to Do?

Step back and reflect on the material your company is producing. How consistent is it? What does it say about your brand?

For instance, if you are a finance company trying to appeal to seniors, you may want to refrain from using millennial colloquialisms.

Instead, if you want to come across as professional yet friendly, a formal-yet-casual tone may be more the way to go. (This can apply to reducing bounce back rates on your website – here is a good guide on how to get more CTA clicks on your pages without annoying your visitors by Web Design Perth.)

3. Not Using the Right Marketing Avenues

This relates to not knowing who your target audience is. But goes more in detail in not understanding the ways they consume information.

It is crucial to know how age groups, groups separated by interests, hobbies, etc. will consume information differently.

For instance, going back to seniors, while they use social media, generally they may use it to stay in touch with family and friends that live farther away.

Nonetheless, a majority of seniors, according to Pew Research, don’t use social media. This then may not be the best marketing avenue if you’re targeting the senior population. Or you may want to do a combination of marketing platforms.

What to Do?

Do your research. Read the studies that are out there, as well as conduct your own. Don’t be afraid of doing too much research. In this case, it is better to do too much than not enough and face a plummet in sales.

Final Thoughts

Knowing these 3 branding mistakes will help ensure that you stay on point with who your brands is and what it represents.

Know that if you realize you have made one of these mistakes, you can always go back to the drawing board—you can also consider re-branding (it isn’t always a death trap). What other branding mistakes do you know of? Leave a comment.   

Bhushan Lele

Bhushan spent the last 15+ years building businesses and learning what really matters to customers. At Custom Logo Cases, we help brands turn everyday tech accessories into high-quality, on-brand marketing tools.