Top 7 most common brand mistakes for startups

What is the worst brand mistake a startup can make? Is it:

(a) depending too much on press releases;

(b) running after the next ‘buzz’;

(c) picking the industry leader and creating identical marketing campaigns; or

(d) none of the above.

The right answer would be (d) none of the above. I agree it was a setup. By the time you reached (d), you knew it would ‘that’ one. The idea is that there is no ‘one’ worst brand mistake. There are 10 primary brand mistakes that relate to 10 core disillusionments.

Before we move to the real brand mistakes, let’s create a scene.

Sam is a young entrepreneur. He just launched his new company. He’s pumped with his new office and designation. He wants to get the best people and build the best product or solution. He wants to change the world and stand tall as a ‘thought leader’.

Sam’s the ever-enthusiastic entrepreneur or EEE. Let’s tell Sam what ‘not’ to do while building his company’s brand.

1.   Ignore your customer

This will come across as Entrepreneur 101, but you’ll be surprised how many people fall prey to this cardinal sin. The idea is not that they ignore the customer. It is that they assume themselves to be the customer. A techie would ‘assume’ the customer wants a feature. It’s a harsh world sometimes. Even though Sam would ‘think’ he knows what’s best for the customer, the customer is likely to disagree.

Core Delusion

Sam doesn’t know who the customer is. Extreme? Not really. Sam might think the CEO of his target company is the customer. However, this CEO might not be the end-customer or even the user. Sam should have perfected the product for the user, who might be a manager or a field agent. That’s why Sam ends up ignoring his primary customer’s needs.

Maybe the customer doesn’t want flashy theatrics in the solution. Maybe just simple design philosophy of going from problem to solution in three clicks is required. But Sam might miss on this critical insight as he is focused on ‘selling’ to the CEO.

What happens next?

Either the CEO doesn’t like the solution, or he/she likes it. In the latter case, Sam might end up with misplaced expectations as the actual ‘user’ or ‘customer’ would not like it. This would lead to canceled subscriptions or… ‘churn’!! Don’t worry, it’s not Halloween, churn is a very real evil around each one of us. Does churn have a secret silver lining? Another discussion for another day.

Ok, but what’s the solution?

But how does this relate to the brand? Sam didn’t perfect the brand image to suit the needs of the end-user. The brand should ‘speak’ to the actual user saying, ‘I am your friend and we are in this together’, not ‘Hey, this is not right, I’ll tell you what you are doing wrong’. Misplaced brand expectations mean that Sam was trying to win the wrong KPI points.

2.   Follow mass ‘current’ trends

Another fashionable mistake. However, people might tell you the opposite. But beware, people tend to be wrong. Sam wants to jump on the latest sports event or national interest to score some branding brownie points. This has a possibility of blowing up in Sam’s face.

In a cluttered market where companies sometimes pay through the nose just to grab space at the top of a search result. It’s natural to believe that aligning yourself with the latest buzz would give you a free run to reach out to a whole new set of audience in search engines.

What happens next?

If Sam’s focus is B2C, this would have more tolerance for error, but not much if its B2B. Either way, there is a huge possibility of bringing in noise more than leads. You see, website visits are a core KPI for many marketers. To get eyeballs and fingertips on the website, they would just quote Game of Thrones.

There will always be noise. For the uninitiated, noise is those visitors or leads that don’t have a ‘fitment’ or are unlikely to get any benefit from your product/solution. Noise is filtered, yet sometimes some extremely ‘cold’ leads end up using important sales resources. This would drum up the cost later with little results. B2C? Well, we all know the calls we get even if just happened to ‘roam around’ through real estate or vacation websites. It’s frustrating at both ends, and by the laws of nature, should have devolved by now.

Yeah, but what is the solution?

The solution is simple. Always have ‘context’. Sam’s brand should have a simple tone and identity, making it easier to remember. Even if Sam wants to pull in Game of Thrones, he should ensure that it fits into the brand’s language. If something is beyond the realistic extents of context for the brand, then it’s best avoided. Like why would Xerox talk about North Korea? It doesn’t fit. Keep it simple, senator.

Here’s a standard to hit above. Remember Kenneth Cole’s infamous tweet?

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.” This was in the middle of the Egyptian revolution. Sam don’t do this.

3.   Create multiple selling points

“What does your brand do, Sam?”

Sam: “Well we fix leakages and we also predict trends and we make tomorrow happen today and…”

We fall in these self-affirming rants in our daily lives. Everyone at some point is asked, “What are your strengths?” It’s not pleasant buy we pile up everything from our field track record to our dancing skills as our strengths. Well, it’s fine for a person to have a well-rounded skill set, it’s different for a brand. A brand should evoke an emotion, an image. If it’s chocolate you sell, then people should think about you when they think chocolate. They don’t need to think of you for your shiny packaging.

What happens next?

This goes down to ‘What is a brand?’ and why it is so important. Since pre-historic times to now, brands have been necessary for us. We live in a world of heuristics, short-form knowledge.

Here’s an age-old example. Xerox is often used as a synonym to photocopies, even though Xerox is a company. When you think photocopies, you think Xerox. Another example? Kodak, at least for analog cameras. They didn’t catch on that fast on the digital front, by their own choice, and suffered. But that’s a discussion for another day.

If you have too many selling points, customers won’t have an easy correlation to place you. A fancy definition sounds good for a minute but is forgotten in a day. That’s pretty much how memory works. If you don’t reaffirm the brand with a single core concept and need, you would be forgotten. Pick a lane and stick to it.

Ok, now what should Sam do?

It’s very important to have a simple brand message as it would become Sam’s calling card. “Your reputation precedes you”, and Sam’s brand is his company’s reputation. It should have a crystal-clear message.

Remember: If you confuse your customer early on, it’s very difficult to get their interest back.

4.   Regularly change brand language and tone

We learn from our mistakes and mature startups and established brands would vouch for this. They have many mistakes they would never want you to know about. Remember ‘New Coke’? If you do then you get it, if you don’t then… well… that’s the point. Don’t change the tone of your brand unless you must.

Think of the brand as an entity and not just a tool. When it is shared by a thousand or million people, it becomes a part of their lives too. It’s a collective asset. The bigger the brand, the more lives it affects. Your brand will have a voice, whether you spend time shaping it. It’s the tone people hear when you think of a brand.

Imagine a military general with a buzz cut, broad shoulders, and a proud stance. Now image this person is talking to you. What do you hear? A gruff and intimidating tone with gravitas? It would be something close to this. You probably won’t hear Bobcat Goldthwait’s voice (he’s the guy from a couple of the Police Academy movies).

Your brand also evokes a tone and a voice in the mind of the customer. It’s important that you build this voice to have control over it. Otherwise, it would suddenly hit a growth-spurt on its own and become shrill and uncomfortable. You don’t want your brand to an awkward teen, do you?

What happens next?

When Sam loses control of the brand’s voice or keeps changing it regularly, the customer won’t be able to relate to it. As the brand image, the tone is also part of its identity. The type of content Sam has, the posts he makes, the communication style, etc. all add to the tone of the brand. When it keeps changing, customers don’t know what the brand stands for.

Suppose a year ago Sam talked about cutting costs and now, he talks about the latest in extravagant tech. Customers won’t be able to fill in this gap.

All right, now what’s the solution?

First, let’s acknowledge that we all are guilty of this. We have these epiphanies and we change our brand’s tone. The reason we don’t notice the problem is that we are living with the brand. If it’s your kid, you won’t be surprised by its growth. But when a distant aunt comes home for Christmas, she will be amazed/shocked to see ‘how much the kid has grown’.

Customers don’t constantly interact with your brand. They make one interaction maybe in a month or even a year and that’s what they’ll remember. If Sam’s brand which has a longer interaction frequency (six months to one year), he must be more careful with the consistency of the brand’s tone. When the customer comes back to the brand, they should feel at home. For more fast-moving brands (daily interactions), it’s important to have connectivity and flow in any change in the tone. This means that Sam can gradually build a change rather than switching suddenly.

Also remember: Keep the tone consistent across platforms like social media, print media, press releases, etc. No horses for courses here, Sam.

5.   Restrict brand building to the marketers

Ok, now this is something new. Branding and marketing are so closely related that we assume that the former is a subset of the later. It’s not. A brand, like a core product line, is an asset for the company. It’s not solely a marketing thing. Sam’s sales folk leave the branding to the marketers and then come-up short when positioning the company before prospects. These prospects have already had their ‘first’ interaction with the brand. This might have been through a post, an article, some news, or just the way the logo made them feel.

What happens next?

Now, these prospects ‘assume’ that the sales or solutioning folk are an extension for the brand. The sales folk, or SF, aren’t Cam, Sam, or Pam. They are the brand. It’s real for the prospects. It’s critical that the SF carry the brand with them. It’s not about the way they talk or pitch. It’s just about staying true to the brand ideology and image. Failure to do this leads to disillusion for the prospects and an immediate and reflexive mistrust. For the prospects, the brand said one thing and now it says something else.

This is very specific and something that many companies are realizing and fixing. But they need to do more. Sam needs to do more.

You know the drill: What’s the solution?

Sam needs to identify people within his company that can act as brand ambassadors. Point diverged? Not really. We spend so much time and efforts getting external influencers that we forget about the internal ones. It’s important to build the brand from within the company. It’s not just for the marketers.

Maybe the HR, Sales, Tech, or Admin can talk about the brand. This brings a human touch to the brand. In the current world, where reviews are a big thing, the personal touch of a human voice is irresistible. There’s a cautionary tale here too.

Don’t force feed the brand. Help key folk from your company build their personal brand, turning them into influencers. Eventually let them share their personal viewpoints of the brand, how it affects or inspires them.

6.   Create marketing budgets without a brand strategy

Ok, so Sam has the money. It isn’t bootstrap with a shoestring budget. If it was, then that’s a different story, for another time. Let’s say Sam has caught on with some green. On the table, he has different marketing plans and budgets. Which one should he pick?

The trouble with marketing budgets is that they try to ape the ‘budget’ part of it. This is counterproductive when you bring in brand building. As mentioned earlier, the brand is an asset like any other. Sam should build the brand over time and not in one quarter.

A normal marketing budget deals with return on investments and conversions, as it should. But it should follow a brand strategy. Otherwise, it’s just about putting money in buckets. $1000 for social media marketing; $10k for AdWords; another $30k for events and promotions, and so on. Sounds fine but how does it tie in with the brand?

What happens next?

A mismanaged marketing budget just runs the time and ‘sustains’ the brand. It’s putting money on packages, whether SEO or SMM. Sam would be reaching a lot of people, but they wouldn’t care about his brand. Budgeting money doesn’t guarantee a connection with the audience. The worst part is that it is addictive.

Yes, paid marketing activities are an addiction. You may see positive and glowing results. However, these results don’t necessarily showcase the real brand footprint. You take off the money and the post engagement and click-through rates fall sharp. Once Sam’s marketers have the incentive of cutting the pressure to build numbers by throwing money at it, they will. That’s the addiction.

Hmm… so what’s the solution?

Make a brand strategy separate from the marketing budget. Sam should clearly set the brand goals and standards before even thinking about the money. This brand strategy includes answering such questions as:

·        What does he want his brand to say?

·        What does he want his brand to stand for?

·        Who does he want to talk about his brand?

·        What ideas and thoughts does he want his brand associated with?

And most important:

·        Where does he want his brand to be 5 years from now?

Sam needs to breakdown his 5-year brand plan into a step-by-step process. This may include building strong media relations, connecting and backing external article contributors, etc.

Once Sam knows what he wants from his brand, then he would know where to put money. Budgeting without a clear brand strategy is like having Messi and Ronaldo in your team without knowing the location of the goalpost.

7.   Try to do everything

Don’t try to do everything, Sam. This ties in with a lot you have already read till now. Essentially pick a line and stick to it. Know your brand’s MO. Don’t drift when you need to sprint. Don’t do everything, just get one thing ‘right’ at a time.

Monotony is often considered a downer. Maybe it is, sometimes. But not when you have a good thing going with your brand. Sam now has a voice for his brand, people know it and talk about it. The last thing he should do is try many things at once and clutter his own marketing road map.

What happens next?

Don’t break what’s not broken. Suppose Sam is just tired of the ‘monotony’ of the brand pitch, which his marketers have given perhaps 1000 times. Brand lethargy gets to the best of us and we call for a total revamp. Sam wants to do it. Change the website, rework the logo, change the brand language, fonts, everything. Should he?

Let the Devil’s advocate deal with Sam’s urge to break the monotony by asking ‘why’. Consistent adherence to the brand image has established it in the customer's mind. Why play with it? Now let’s say that Sam is stubborn and ignores the ‘D’ advocate. He initiates a relaunch of the whole brand. There’s a clear and strong opportunity cost here that he is missing.

When the marketers are busy redoing what they have already done successfully, they aren’t bettering anything. It’s just grunt work. Sam may feel pressured by market movement with newer players making their mark. This, in turn, would stem his need to look at his own brand differently. This mistake is more prevalent than we would like to believe. Unnecessary changes end up brand equity, in the long run, pushing it a few years back.

Noted. So, finally, what’s the solution?

It’s simple. Give up the brand. It’s like watching your child become independent. The brand would become bigger than Sam eventually, and he must deal with it. Changing something just because is not the solution. Systematically orchestrating brand growth over time needs discipline and a strong vision.

There’s always incentive to climb back to ‘apparent’ relevancy by changing the brand altogether. But that’s the worst possible decision. To fight this incentive, do with the brand as you would do with any other asset. Chart and record each event along with brand growth. Document the progress. Take NPS scores and field test all ideas before rushing into something. Don’t let your marketers get engulfed with data but instill ownership and belonging with the brand. It’s not just another KPI.

When Sam’s company’s growth reaches its eventual inflection point, it will be this hard-worked brand which would propel it into the top league. Why? Because earnest and consistent brand building have built a pedigree and following for the company and now is the time to cash in.

In a nutshell

Brand is the only asset which would give Sam lifelong dividends. It would also make the lives of his entire team easier and full of pride the more it grows.

These are my top 7 brand mistakes which Sam, the EEE, should avoid.

Do you have any that you would like to add to this list? You would be doing Sam a huge favor.