Mistakes to Avoid when Building your Brand
Building a brand is a complicated process that needs skill, patience, determination, and perhaps even a stroke of luck. A lot of people have tried in the past, but only a few are able to succeed. With this, if you want to build a successful brand, be sure to not commit the mistakes the will be briefly mentioned in the rest of this post.
Not Asking for Help
As a new business, if you want to build a brand, you have to capitalize on the expertise of people outside the organization. For instance, you can ask for help from companies like Vivaldi Group. They have a group of people who have the skills and capabilities to help your brand become superior, even in a market that is over-saturated. They can provide you with recommendations on the best strategies that can be executed. They also know which ones will most likely lead to failure.
Following Market Leaders
While it is indeed a good thing to be inspired by the success of market leaders, you cannot simply replicate their brand strategy and expect to yield the same level of success. What you can do is to analyze what they are doing and use this as a source of learning, not an opportunity to do exactly what they have done. After all, you need to find a strategy to differentiate yourself and give others an alternative. Being a clone will not do you good.
Lacking Consistency
It is no secret that consistency is the secret to success in branding. For a brand to become more consistent, one thing that you can do is to create a brand guide, which will provide a comprehensive outline of matters related to branding, such as your mission and value proposition. You also need to execute the same tone. Brand colors should also be consistent across all forms of marketing channels that you will utilize.
Being Obsessed with the Competitors
Rather than being competitor-oriented, it is important to build a brand that is customer-oriented. The competition is beyond your control. By prioritizing your customers, you need to develop high-quality products that can deliver a high level of customer satisfaction. If you are being too focused on your competitors, you might ignore the fact that the customer is king.
Expanding too Soon
Another mistake that you should not commit is expanding the brand at an early stage. It can be tempting to build another brand, but this can derail your focus. In some instances, this can even lead to brand cannibalism. Carefully assess your current performance and be sure that you are ready before you expand. Otherwise, keep expansion plans on hold. If you keep on expanding, it will be easier to fall off the click, making your brand fail.
While branding is indeed complicated, it does not mean that success is limited to the big-wigs in the industry. Even if you are a novice, you can succeed by making sure that you do not fall victim to the mistakes that have been discussed above.
About the Author
Ivan Widjaya A mobile entrepreneur who loves to work anytime, anywhere he wants. He runs several popular business blogs, make money online and live a geoarbitrage lifestyle. He typically works at home and travel with his family when he wants to, often without his business.
