7 Mistakes to avoid when designing your brand in 2020

What if you could make that 70% of your sales depend solely on leads that come to you without even asking?

You could reduce some costs, allocate resources on other important areas, and grow your business easier.

However, this requires a lot of hard work and the use of a variety of business strategies.

The good news of all this is that today you will learn some of the most common mistakes, which often cause incredible economic losses to small and large businesses, especially in an area that is often overlooked most of the time – as Branding.

Read on to find out what NOT to do when designing your branding strategy.

The 7 mistakes you need to avoid when designing your brand

#1. Not knowing who you really are

This probably hurts, but it’s the truth.

Most of the time, we decide to create our own company without even knowing what to expect from our project. We don’t have a growth plan or even a clear enough vision of what we want to achieve.

This is like getting carried away with the idea that having a business will let you work less, be your own boss, or make a better profit. While these reasons are good, they shouldn’t be the whole focus of attention.

The design of your brand should express through different visual elements, and other intangibles assets, the personality, and the vision of your business.

It often happens, however, that as owners of a business or as the person who makes decisions, we focus too much on aspects related to the products or services we offer and not on the presence and development of our brand within the industry.

The number one mistake in designing your brand, therefore, transcends at the moment you want to be noticed among your competition without any success.

Therefore, it’s best that you prioritize defining the values, principles, and vision of your brand from the very beginning.

#2. Not knowing your audience

While not knowing yourself is one of the biggest mistakes you can make while developing your brand, not listening to your audience is the second-worst mistake you can make.

Think about it.

Is it easier to sell to strangers or to the people you know?

Great!

By knowing your audience you will realize what visual elements, what kind of interactions, and what kind of actions you can start applying in your business so that these people feel motivated to interact with your brand and even feel encouraged to become your customers.

Keep in mind that knowing your audience is not something that happens overnight. It requires doing research on a regular basis and paying close attention to what’s going on around you.

#3. Too much inconsistency in your communication channels

One of the great rules of marketing tells us that we must go where our audience goes. (Here you have  the importance of knowing our audience)

However, there are many companies that open communication channels in social networks and other platforms without having a plan that allows them to provide value to their audience, increase interactions, and grow as a brand.

Inconsistency also refers to the use of multiple elements that include but are not limited to

• Use of many types of typography
• Use of many colors
• Use of a huge variety of images
• Messages too different on each platform

When this happens, people get confused. Consequently, everything you do will not have the same level of efficiency.

To avoid this mistake when designing your brand, ideally, you should establish a brand book from the very beginning.

This will help you as a guide to using your color palette, logo, and other brand elements correctly.

And with this, we can go to the next common mistake when trying to design your brand.

#4. Lack of a Brand Book

A brand book is a guide that details how to use the elements that give life to your company such as your logo, font, colors and more.

It is through this type of manual that you begin to have greater consistency across different platforms and to position yourself in the minds of your target customers.

With a branded manual, your company will have a direction to follow and your content will be properly formatted to avoid looking unprofessional.

This will also prevent you from making secondary mistakes such as using too many colors, having a rather limited visual identity, or having content that does not add value and has little meaning for your audience.

#5. Lack of a design system

In the beginning, it might be a lot easier to put into practice all your design ideas. However, as your company grows, you will need to hire more people who have new ideas, new typographies, new patterns, new color palettes, and a lot more to add to your brand.

With this, you can be at risk of growing the inconsistency with your communication efforts.

From the beginning, you need to think about how to align your resources and what kind of process is needed to make everything work in the best way.

This type of system will help you detect and eliminate bottlenecks, which will also increase productivity and finally catapult your company to a better position in front of your potential customers.

#6. Starting with a cheap brand identity

At first, we all worried about our budget.

Your brand identity will help you make your way within your niche. The mistake of starting with a cheap brand identity is that, as you grow you will be forced to get a more professional image.

When making the transition, many brands make mistakes and customers get confused, which ultimately translates into monetary losses.

Even if it requires a little more money, investing in creating a professional logo and brand book will never be a bad idea.

#7. The worst branding mistake is not measuring the results of your effort

We live in the age of data. It is through all that information that the most successful businesses make better decisions.

You too can begin to cultivate your strategic thinking based on real data from your own efforts in developing your brand.

This will also help you begin to implement a culture where ROI becomes a fundamental part of the moves you make within your industry.

If you are designing your company’s branding strategy, don’t forget to establish performance indicators that will let you know if you are doing well with your investments of both money and time.

Are you ready to grow your business?

By avoiding the 7 mistakes detailed in this article you will be able to compete strongly within your industry. Plus, you’ll be saving yourself a lot of money and opportunities to compromise your company’s reputation.

Start solving your branding problems immediately.