Are you a new business just starting out and aspiring to become the next big thing in the market? Do you have extensive marketing goals and want to create a strong brand identity for yourself? While branding your new business in the market and creating a new identity is easy, it pays to beware of the mistakes many small businesses makes while branding them. This is why we have presented you with a list of stupid branding mistakes small businesses make when starting out.
1. Failing to Form Well-Defined Brand Guidelines
Before you can even begin to think of starting the branding process of your business, you should come up with definitive brand guidelines upon which the whole branding campaign will adhere to. You can consider the following points when forming brand guidelines:
- Logos
- Taglines
- Imagery
- Colors
- Spokespeople of your brand.
This list is far from exhaustive but brand guidelines in such areas need to be well-defined for the branding efforts of your company to have a meaningful direction.
2. Not Following Brand Guidelines
Once the brand guidelines are well defined and documented, you will be faced with times when you would want to deviate from them.While it can be fruitful in many regards, doing so might result in you relinquishing the power you have over your brand image and, as a result, portraying a new image in your customers’ mind.
3. Making Your Brand Complicated Unnecessarily
When working on branding a new business, you will be tempted to use various different colors or other design elements a part of your brand identity. You have to resist the urge to do that because it overcomplicates things for your brand for the future. It makes your brand hard to remember because of all the intricate details. Keep it simple. Keep it memorable. Keep it cool.
4. Vague Branding
While you don’t want to over complicate your brand identity, you also need to avoid the exact opposite. You don’t need to be vague in your branding, failing to reveal anything about your company and just give out lofty words and unclear ideas about who you are supposed to be, as a company.
5. Social Media Trap
Just because everyone seems to be on social media, doesn’t mean you do too. A good social media strategy requires dedicated financial and human resources. This is something that might backfire on you as a small business. Watch where you fall when treading in tricky social media waters. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. You should just be careful.