7 Small Business Branding Mistakes I Used To Make

I’ve had my share of businesses that flopped. Lucky for you I have analyzed what branding mistakes I was guilty of, and what you can do to avoid them. Keep on reading if you’d better learn from my mistakes than make your own.

Yes, you’re not Apple. No, only the logo won’t do.

Mistake 1: Discarding proper branding.

There is a weird concept flying around in the startup community, that big branding strategies are only for giants, like Google or Apple, or whatnot. I was there too. But, I hurry to dispel the myth — only the logo won’t do the job.

You need a full brand identity to make an impression on your customer. Every element of it, from something as simple as defining the mission/vision, to establishing the brand personality.

My experience: My business was all over the place. Calling it a brand would be a huge stretch. I only had a logo and thought that it was enough. Never getting to creating the brand personality made me and my team oblivious to what tone of voice to use and how to address our clients.

Since we haven’t made any decisions on the visual identity, we used a new pattern each time which affected the memorability and recognition of our business. 0/10, wouldn’t recommend. A huge flop.

We all know that today the competition is crazy, and every project has a cool product/service. That’s by default. The only opportunity to sell is not only has a well-though differention point, but also to get it across in such a way, that people remember you by it. This is where the branding comes into play. Use your mission, vision, core values, and identity for that purpose. To make it loyal to your brand.

Bottom line: Giant brands became giant exactly because they made the right branding decisions from the very first day.

Brand Identity ✔️ Success ❓❓

Mistake 2: Creating a brand identity and never using it.

The second time around I thought I came prepared. I googled the branding checklist and ticked every box in there. The thing I realized too late was having the brand identity was just a part of your branding strategy. The other part is using it (properly).

Make sure your team knows what image you’re pursuing, what’s the mission/vision of your brand. Make sure you’ve determined a visual identity, and that every designer knows every point of it. This brings me to the next mistake.

If only I had a cheatsheet…Wait a minute!

Mistake 3: Not creating brand guidelines.

I cannot stress enough how important brand guidelines are for any brand, but especially for a small one. This is your — and your team’s — textbook, a guide on how to behave.

If you’re working with outsource designers that change a lot, having a brand book is crucial to keep them posted on the visuals, colors, shapes, and patterns to use every time they design something for you.

It’s a shame not to have proper brand guidelines laid out, honestly. Especially these days, where you have hundreds of branding designers to work with, or even automated brand book builders like Gingersauce.

The brand book is a magic wand that will keep your brand appearances consistent. Don’t forget, consistency equals recognition. Recognition equals higher traffic. Higher traffic equals higher returns.

I’m not stealing, I’m using the common practices!

Mistake 4: Copying the competitors.

“That works for them, so it’ll work for me as well.” This is what I was thinking, making probably the worst branding decision ever: copying my competitor’s everything. The tone of voice, the positioning, the content ideas, etc.

It’s such a simple idea, yet I can not believe so many business owners ignore it (myself included). Try to make your brand unique. If there are 20 businesses that are the same, a customer will choose the one that will be more convenient to use. If the brand is unique and catchy the customer will choose you, even if you’re a headache to get around (I don’t recommend thit service approach, just to get the point across).

World is my audience.

Mistake 5: Not defining the target audience.

If you don’t know who you’re talking about, how can you know how to do that? While making any decision with your branding strategy you have to keep in mind the target audience.

My recommendation is to create a person, decide on their age, interests, background. Give them a name. And address them every time you put out something.

This will help you in many ways, including:

• Creating the tone of voice.
• Designing working imagery & creating engaging content.
• Attracting the needed audience.

Oh, what do they know.

Mistake 6: Not listening to your audience.

Your brand is here to tackle your audience’s problem. They know what their problem is, listen, and take it into account.

Note every feedback you get, especially the bad ones. They are what makes you grow, and provide a better service for everyone in your audience. Don’t take it personally, and latch out onto the customer who’s written a bad review. Use this opportunity to show that you’re doing everything possible to make a solution that will help your client to tackle their problem.

Yeah, create a support email. I won’t check it ever anyways.

Mistake 7: Underestimating good customer service.

86% of buyers would pay more for a better customer experience.

Think about how your customers feel after they interact with your brand, at every point. Are they happy in the end? Frustrated? Discouraged?

Good customer service provides returning customers, and facilitates word of mouth marketing. A person who was treated awkward won’t recommend you to a friend. A person who was pleasantly surprised, will.

A personal experience: I was stunned to see how seemingly small things can influence the brand’s image within its audience. Never underestimate the small free candy thrown into the package or a sticker of some sort (as an example). It won’t cost you much, but you’ll be surprised how much feedback you’ll get, and how many times you’ll get tagged. That’s on a little marketing note, not a branding one.

The bottom line

Branding is not as much of a grey area anymore. There are plenty of blogs you can visit to learn how to brand, there are even tools that help you do just that (like the mentioned already Gingersauce or maybe Frontify). Do not think that branding is only for big guys. The big guys were also small once. Good branding is your chance to grow. Soon everyone will be looking up to you.

Hope this list helped! I wish I had someone to tell me everything mentioned before I killed 4 businesses of mine — oopsie.

Share your mistakes! Let’s get more brands to start off great.