When we create a brand, it is like our only dream, only passion and only ambition. And to think like this is normal – it takes a lot of you to create & establish a brand.

So many times it happens that we get too involved into it, we love to experiment with the graphics, and we want to try the personal favorites to our brand.

Warning! A brand is owned by us but it is created for the use & benefit of its customers.

And since we gave a warning here, we are going to detail out the 7- Most Avoidable Branding Mistakes.

Mind the Orientation

This is important to keep the orientation of your brand as per the focus area. The purpose of its existence is value creation and the orientation shall be based on that, the idea is to reach out the right customers at appropriate touch points. So we must create a brand which can be less pleasing to all but should be appealing to our customer segment.

Follow KIPS

At 30TH FEB, we follow the KIPS principle for branding a business or start-up. KIPS is “Keep it Plain & Simple”. Many of our clients insist of high pitch language, world class tone and jargon. This shall be avoided.

Remember, a client is coming to you to get the right solution. They are not interested in knowing how well you write and how many jargons you use in a single sentence. The idea here is to talk business, convey brand message and advocate its benefits. Therefore, we recommend keeping your brand story and communication – plain & simple.

Stop the fight to ‘stand-out’

Ah! This is very common, like you want to stand out in person in a Prom night; you exactly want your brand to stand out in the market area. Almost, everyone who comes to us – want their brand to stand out. Standing out sometimes can be dangerous for your brand, because it gets too complicated and different from the competitors that it stands-out from the client’s mind. Standing-out is many a times found to be a loss of brand recall.

Brands in the zest of making it different take away the relevance and realize only when they receive no or wrong inquiry calls/messages.

Evolve or Be ready to Fail

Make sure what you have created is evolving and getting better. Be it your brand promise or the output. Your brand is like a story, a song, a movie – it it doesn’t evolves and engages you enough it get boring. To keep the client attention, to make them come back to your brand – you need to engage them, offer them value and better your services. You should evolve on how you communicate with your client and how they can reach you.

Remember, sometimes even the most well executed branding strategies fail as they fail to follow through.

Avoid – ‘Owner of many & working on one’ situation

I always say, branding is glamorous. It excites – it also sometimes mesmerizes you. I have seen clients who work on 2-3 brands at a time and fail to work on the expertise of either. That is avoidable as it results into distraction. Some start-ups got into multiple brands, as they insisted on a parent brand and than a sub-brand. Many a times – it also leads to Identity crisis.

One has to be sure and shall work on the expertise. ‘Owner of many & working on one’ is not a recommended situation.

Brand internally and do it now

This is very important that you brand internally. Internal Branding is often left for the later on phases of a brand but the results of a brand which is established internally lead to – employee loyalty, better brand communication and you end up creating brand advocates within the company.

Remember, if your employees, associates do not understand your brand, its promise & positioning they will undermine the image and this will lead to a loss of brand.

Keep a Promise

Promises are easier made then kept. Avoid such a situation. If your brand communicates a promise – of service, of timelines, of performance, make sure you live up to them. No customer likes to be told a lie or given pretense.  So communicate what you are sure of and deliver what you have promised.

Make sure you keep note of the most common branding mistakes. And if you need a help on any of the above, feel free to share in comments and we will get in touch.