Business owners are known for being visionaries. Entrepreneurs have visions of building success companies with household names. While many ambitious entrepreneurs know all about how to start a company, many are unaware of how important branding is.
Catherine Way
Branding is an overlooked tool in most startups, but is essential for how you attract new clients. Proper branding will attract qualified clients to your business while poor branding will turn clients away from your door.
Many entrepreneurs want to try a little bit of everything to find customers and their brand, but this can lead to inconsistent and confusing messages to their clients. The best way to build a better brand? Avoid these common mistakes.
Here are the top 3 Branding Mistakes to Avoid for your Business.
No Customer Journey
Is a customer journey sales or marketing? Both! Marketing and branding are about lead generation for your business. So knowing how you plan to capture those leads is a necessity for any successful business.
That is why it is shocking that most small businesses do not have a customer journey, or marketing plan. A customer journey simply is when someone sees your brand how will you interact with them to turn them into a customer? Email, Text, Social, your Website will all play a pivotal role in how you convert leads into customers.
To overcome this you should have a deep understanding of your customer and what they need. Creating an outline of customers’ pain points, needs, and wants is a great way to understand what they need from your business, and how they will interact with you.
Your customer journey will help guide you through marketing your business! This is a branding essential for any successful business.
No Brand Voice
Poor brand voice is one of the fastest ways to lose costumes. Poorly written emails with typos, or even an aggressive tone can turn away clients faster than they can delete!
Brand voice ties together your sales messaging and clients needs in a neat little bow. Your brand voice will be a direct reflection of how you want to interact with your clients. The right brand voice will attract your ideal clients, while a poor brand voice won’t mesh with your audience.
A popular example of brand voice is Wendy’s Twitter. Wendy’s shows their brand voice is witty comebacks, while boosting engagements and becoming viral.
Brand voice should be consistent and compelling. A memorable tagline shows the power of branding. This should be repeated often across platforms and what your customers know you for. From Nike’s ‘Just Do It’, or Skittles ‘Taste The Rainbow’.
Brand voice can create loyal and repeat customers. Tone and message combine together to create a brand voice that will resonate with your clients.
No Brand Colors or Templates
Colors and templates play a huge role for your brand. Good branding will make your brand recognizable, while poor branding can confuse and leave customers asking who was this?
Branding is about consistency, so templates for social posts are a great opportunity to reinforce your brand. One of the easiest ways to do this is through brand colors. While many know red as the ‘buying color’, Blue speaks to a more laid back and trustworthy brand, so depending on your product, and customer journey some colors may work better for your brand.
Marketo studied the top 100 brands, to show how top businesses use color and this is what they found. Blue seems to be the winning color, as it shows up in 33% of the top 100 brands. Red comes second by showing up in 29% of the brands, and black or grayscale make the third most popular choice with 28%. Finally, 13% use yellow or gold. What’s interesting is that 95% of the top 100 brands only use one or two colors.
Color is a great way to maintain consistent and a cohesive branding image. A red can reminds of a coca-cola bottle, and shows how color and consistency can make your brand easily identifiable. By combining your brand colors with templates your clients can easily recognize your brand across any platform.
Summary:
Branding is a great way to attract new clients, keep loyal customers, and build a reputation for your business. When done incorrectly it can turn away customers and lose you money. Thankfully with a better understanding of your customers you can create better branding for your business.
Branding takes research, and knowledge of your customers. From what service they expect, to how they want to interact with your business, your brand needs to overcome their hesitations to get potential customers to buy.
In order to build a batter brand, here are the 3 Branding Mistakes To Avoid:
- No Customer Journey: Have a customer map from first interaction to final sale that pinpoints your customers wants, needs, and pain points. This customer map is critical for a great branding and marketing strategy.
- Brand Voice: After you create your client map, determine the best message that sticks with your clients and how to deliver it. Ask yourself the following: What is a tagline that you want your clients to remember you for? Will your brand be playful, serious, or laid back?
- Colors: What color best represents your brand and how will you use it for your business. The most popular brand colors are: Blue, Red, and Black. Additionally make templates for all your social media posts for a more recognizable and memorable brand.
About the Author: Catherine Way is the Marketing Manager for Prime Plus Mortgages :Real Estate Note Investing. She has created content for the following industries: Real Estate, Mortgage, Finance, Business, Marketing, Interior Design, and many more.
