"Branding is more than just a creative name and cute logo..." - Bernard Kelvin Clive

Building a brand is about much more than coming up with a brand statement, logo, and colors. And still, too many businesses seem to think that’s all there is to it. This is why so many of them end up getting lost in the sea of other competitors and can’t seem to stick with their audience. But if your goal is to get your brand out there and attract the right people, you have to know how to build a brand strategy and avoid some crucial mistakes. Here are a few of them.

Not Starting with a Brand Strategy

The biggest issue is not coming in with a strategy. You should always start with your biggest competition and see what they’re doing. This will inspire you as to what you can do and how you can differentiate yourself. You also need to have a clear audience of who you’re catering to. Remember, this is all about your customer and aligning yourself with their experience. If you start from this angle, you’ll realize that fonts and colors have very little to do with your brand. It’s about being as persuasive as possible to your core audience.

Not Delegating

This is another major issue for many companies. They might want to put their in-house marketing team on the job when they might not understand all the aspects of branding. Branding online and offline are two completely different things, and people who do not have the expertise to build a brand online cannot be expected to learn on the fly and get good results.

You need to hire a team for the job and find one with significant experience working on this type of project. People like main-rose.com are a perfect example. Outsourcing online branding will result in better results and will allow you to save time and money. You’ll also be able to allocate your team to asks they are better at.

Cutting Corners

A lot of people try to build their brand on the cheap. The issue is that a cheap brand will become synonymous with who you are, and it will be very difficult to shake off. This is why you need to invest all that you can into a proper design at first. While the logo isn’t everything, it is still a very important part of branding, so don’t make the mistake of hiring someone on Fiverr to do the job. What you’ll get is a mishmash of overused stock photos and cheap fonts. While you can get away with a cheap site at the beginning, make sure that the colors and logos are consistent and that the logo is professionally made.

One of the big issues with having a cheaply made logo is that you might have difficulty transposing it to different formats. You don’t want to have to redesign the logo so that it looks the same on print and online.

These are a few examples of mistakes people make when building their brand. Make sure that you avoid these, and understand what makes a strong brand to begin with.

Recommended books:

* CEO Branding* Simple Branding Guide for Small Business Owners