Why Your Brand “Isn’t Working”: Three Common Branding Mistakes & How To Fix Them
So you spend weeks DIY-ing your brand, and it looks *chefs kiss* beautiful. It’s polished, professional looking, the colors make you swoon, and you literally can’t stop looking at it. But somehow clients just aren’t lining up around the corner like you expected.
So what gives?
There are three mistakes that we see all the time with clients here at Specht & Co. when they come to us looking for help with their brand. If you’re struggling to convert leads into clients, chances are you’re making one (or a couple) of them too.
So today on the blog, we’re talking about three of the most common branding mistakes and (most importantly) what you can do to fix them!
Let’s dive in!
Mistake #1: Your brand is designed for you
This is hands-down the most common mistake we see when clients come to Specht & Co. claiming that their brand “isn’t working” for them, and we totally understand why! It’s an easy mistake to make, especially if you’re a solopreneur or if you use your own name as your business name.
If your focus was on yourself while you were designing your brand (i.e. what are your favorite colors, what fonts do you like, what types of imagery resonate with you) then you might find yourself struggling to attract and connect with ideal clients.
The reason for that is simple… 99% of the time, YOU are not your own ideal client.
Take me (Morgan) for example. I own a brand and web design studio, am a military spouse and dog-mom, and my goals for my business include growing my team, balancing work and life, and bringing in six figures in 2023.
Now let me ask you a few questions…
How many of my clients do you think own brand and web design studios? None.
How many are military spouses? Maybe one or two.
How many have dogs? Eh… I’d say half.
And how many have the same business goals as me? Again, maybe 50%.
If I designed my brand to appeal to only people who were exactly like me, iIt would be BEAUTIFUL. Seriously, my heart would want to burst every time I looked at anything with my branding on it.
…But I probably wouldn’t have very many clients.
The Fix: Design your brand around your ideal client
When you work on a branding package with Specht & Co., we employ a strategy-first approach. And a major component of defining your brand strategy includes getting to know your ideal client really, really well.
How old are they? Where do they live? What types of businessesbusiness do they own? What’s their education level? What are their core values? What are their fears? Where do they go looking for information? What are their business goals and what’s holding them back from meeting those goals?
This is just a small sampling of the information we collect during a brand strategy intensive that allows us to get inside the heads of your ideal client and design a visual brand that speaks directly to them.
When you design your visual brand with your ideal client as your focus, you’re able to let them know at your first interaction that you see them, you understand their pain points, and you are the service right provider for them.
Mistake #2: You’re not using your brand consistently across all marketing touch points
Before we dive into to mistake #2, take a minute to list out every single place that your brand appears.
I’ll start you off with a few examples:
Website
Social Media
Email Signature
Marketing Emails
Welcome Packets
Invoices
Client Questionnaires
Google Docs
Client Gifts
Printed Collateral (business cards, stationary, etc.)
Are you using your branding consistently (i.e. the same logo, colors, fonts, photography, and graphic styles) across all of those touch points?
If your answer is no, you’re not alone. Most often we run into one of two issues here:
You forget to add *any* branding to some of these touch points. Most commonly things like invoices, Google Docs, client questionnaires, etc.
You’ve recently updated your branding and a few of these touchpoints have slipped through the cracks during the update process.
So why is this a problem? One word…consistency.
Consistency leads to brand recognition, and when a prospective client is able to recognize your brand, they’re more likely to commit to working with you.
The Fix: Ensure you’re using your brand consistently across all touchpoints and platforms
Lucky for you, the fix for this one is easy!
Carve out an hour or so to spend doing a quick audit of all of your marketing touchpoints and take note of anywhere that is missing your branding entirely, or needs to be updated.
Then, one touchpoint at a time you can start going through and making sure you’re using the same logos, colors, fonts, photography, and graphic styles in every instance that your brand shows up!
And here’s a little bonus…
In addition to consistency and brand recognition, having a polished suite of well-branded marketing touchpoints will signal to clients that you’ve really got your sh*t together. In other words, you’re a premium service provider who knows their stuff and is worth a high-ticket investment.
Just in case that was unclear, that means you’ll be able to charge more money!
Mistake #3: You’re don’t have a clear core message
What is your brand’s core message?
If you’re drawing a blank, then we’ve got a problem.
Alternatively, if you’re able to list out an entire page of “core messages” for your brand, we’ve also got a problem.
As we talked about in mistake #2, visual consistency is a requirement when building a strategic, well-designed brand that commands premium prices and actually converts clients.
But that’s only half of the equation. You might have the most beautiful visuals on the internet and be drawing in a steady stream of prospects, but if they’re still not hiring you then chances are you’re confusing your audience by not sending a consistent message.
Consistency in your message is equally, if not more important than consistency in your visuals. (If you feel like I’m beating you over the head with the “consistency is key” message, it’s because I am.)
The Marketing Rule of 7 states that a prospect needs to hear an advertiser’s message at least seven times before they will be compelled to take action and purchase.
If every time your audience comes in contact with your brand, they’re hearing a different message or seeing a different offering then you will quite literally never be able to reach that threshold, which will make it much harder to make sales.
The Fix: Repeat the same simple message over and over again
You’ll be happy to hear that the fix for this problem actually involves doing less work rather than more.
Instead of coming up with a clever new headline and a punny quip every time you post on social media or send an email (which, let's be honest, can turn into a huge time suck), choose one simple, clear message about your brand and share that over and over again.
Now obviously this doesn’t mean copy and pasting the exact same text each and every time, but the core message of all of your content should be the same.
For example, this is our core message at Specht & Co.:
“You deserve a professional, strategic brand and website that can serve as a foundation for future business growth”
Now, you might only see us make that statement word-for-word in a small handful of places, but if you read through our website, social, and email content it will become clear that that message is at the core of every piece of content we put out. And over time, our audience has learned that that’s what they can expect when working with us.
If this sounds impossible to you, don’t worry!
When you work with Specht & Co. on a branding project we’ll help you define your core message as part of our brand strategy phase. If that’s something you’re interested in, you can get started by downloading our service guide here!
