Branding Your Business Part 5

In the final post of this series we are going to touch on some of the more common branding mistakes. Knowing them can help you to avoid making them. Then we’ll talk about how you can use branding to increase sales.

As you now know from reading this series, branding is more than just a pretty logo. It’s about creating a seamless experience for consumers so that they will know, like and trust your business.

Your brand is your promise to consumers that you can and will meet their expectations. It’s important that you craft your business brand carefully and deliberately. Be prepared to invest time and effort to maintain it.

Audience

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to effective branding is the failure to understand your target audience.

Before you begin branding your business, or selling anything for that matter it’s important to have a good understanding of the audience you’re trying to reach. Take time to get to know them and understand their problems. Take some time to focus on their wants and needs. Consider the places they like to hang out and the other brands they follow. Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience, branding and messaging will be much easier.

Competition

Failure to research the competition is a big mistake. This is especially important if you are a new business. Researching your competition will help you get a handle on what established businesses in your industry are doing right and what they’re doing wrong. It will also help you see opportunities that will give your brand an edge. If you can exploit the weaknesses of your competition you will have a competitive edge.

Look at the products, services, websites and social profiles of your competition. Pay attention to their target audiences. What are people saying about them? What can you do better? Ask yourself these questions and use the information gained to position your business for success.

Feedback

Asking for feedback from the wrong or limited sources can cause a lot of damage to a branding campaign. Consumer feedback is very important. It should be leveraged to boost your brand but it’s important that you take feedback from the right sources.

Every business owner wants great feedback. It’s our natural instinct to only want to focus on the good things. However, limiting your sources to only positive feedback can actually cause your business branding efforts more harm than good. Paying attention to only good feedback will harm your efforts because it won’t help you identify areas for improvement or set measurable and appropriate goals.

Inconsistency

We’ve talked a lot about brand consistency in these posts because it has a huge impact on your business. Consistency helps raise awareness, loyalty and credibility. If there are inconsistencies in your brand consumers will become confused and lose trust. The more consistent you are with your images, promotions, communication and every other interaction you have with your audience the stronger your brand presence will be.

Building and managing a brand isn’t an easy thing. There are many businesses that think a brand is something you establish and then you don’t have to put any more effort into it. If you want your business to be successful you must be ready to adapt to the constantly changing needs of your market. You should constantly improve and refine your brand to provide better quality and consistency for your customers.