Seven Ways Your Brand Is Costing You Money
Many founders overlook the importance of branding when they launch their business. We've met with potential clients who are so eager to get their business off the ground that they're reluctant to take time to think through foundational decisions and build a brand that has a deep connection to their audience, purpose and values. As a result, they end up with an entry-level logo and a dusty brand palette from a designer who doesn't know anything about the brand's aspirations. We've also had clients come to us five to ten years after this experience, wanting to do the branding process "right."
When founders don't slow down to assess who they're targeting, how to differentiate themselves from other businesses in their industry and why it's important to define a brand that aligns with their business values, it ends up costing them more money. When branding isn't deemed important by the founders, the trickle-down effect ensures employees won't take it seriously either, leaving a misaligned brand that lacks cohesion and doesn't put forth a trustworthy vision for potential clients. We've seen it all, but here are seven key ways bad branding is costing your small business money.
You're marketing to yourself, rather than to your target audience
Take Boutique Fitness, for example. The owners of this studio can only be described as hardcore. They are in incredible shape: they eat well, they lift heavy weights, they do cardio and they have attracted a strong group of committed clients to their business. However, when we took our focus group through an exploration of their public-facing materials, we found that many people thought the look of the studio was intimidating.
The images on the website featured the business owners—muscle-bound and staring intensely into the camera—contorted in a variety of strenuous, impossible-looking exercises. By the look of things, Boutique Fitness was for college athletes, bodybuilders and Ironmen looking for a PR, and the majority of focus group participants felt they would not be welcome in this type of intense, athletic environment. But Boutique Fitness’ actual audience was mostly middle-aged women looking for education around nutrition and fitness and hoping for a plan to help keep them strong.
The owners were projecting a version of a gym that they themselves wanted to be part of and fitness ideals that they were attracted to, but they weren't thinking about projecting an image that would suit the demographic they were targeting.
Your brand looks different across every touch point
Alignment is important for any business that wants to present a professional, polished look. When there's a visible lack of cohesion across platforms, it puts forth a scattershot vision—even if no one can quite articulate why.
Take a wellness brand we'll call Skincare X. Their Instagram feed was soft and sunlit, unified by pastel product shots and gentle close-ups in a dappled, gauzy atmosphere. But their website paired bright photography with a bold, saturated color palette, and their packaging used a different font from the website and a slightly faded version of the website’s color scheme. Individually, none of these choices were a problem: the photos were strong and the color palettes, respectively, were sound. However, when viewing the brand from three different platforms, it presented like three distinct companies.
When we asked our focus group about Skincare X, many resisted the brand, even if they couldn’t quite articulate why. Some felt the brand wasn’t well-defined. Even if the inconsistency is subconscious on the client’s end, it still erodes confidence. If your brand’s photography, tone and palette shift at each brand interaction, you're asking your audience to do the work of figuring out who you are, and most people won't bother.
Dormancy
Nothing says "our business is closed" like an Instagram account that hasn't registered a post in several years. Many founders have good intentions when they first launch their brand and social channels. With hope in their heart and stars in their eyes, they set out to keep everything up-to-date. Some even include an aspirational News feed on their website that they plan to update weekly. What often happens is that once the business takes off, updating the website becomes the perpetual last item on the to-do list. Some consequences of a website left fallow? Out-of-date news feeds, obsolete offerings, pricing that no longer applies, dead links and an overall ambiance of a slightly haunted, abandoned warehouse.
A website isn't a "set it and forget it" tool. It requires constant upkeep, and the more pages you add, the more vigilant you need to be. Check your links. Check your copyright date. Skip the news feature unless you'll maintain it. Leave the publish date off your blog posts if you can't post them at regular intervals. If you're not prepared to keep something current, don't put it up. A single broken page or a stale headline can be the difference between a visitor trusting you with their business and navigating away.
You lack a cohesive foundation
If your brand isn't anchored to a defined style, font, mood or voice, every new piece of content becomes an improvisation. That waywardness feels unprofessional and inspires a lack of trust. This doesn't mean you're locked into your launch-day fonts and color palette forever. Brands evolve, and they should. But every departure from your foundation should be strategic. Without that foundation, you're not evolving—you're adrift.
One way to make sure that a brand has a sound foundation is to develop a brand guide. A brand guide is a document that defines the visual and verbal standards for how a brand should be presented across all communication points. It serves as the single source of truth that keeps a brand looking and sounding consistent, whether the work is done by an in-house team, freelancers, outside agencies or AI.
You don't know what you're really selling
In addition to selling a defined menu of goods or services, every great brand is simultaneously selling an emotion, an aspiration or a possibility. Cartier isn't really selling watches and jewelry—they're selling legacy, elegance and a sense of luxury. That feeling is baked into everything from their advertising to their boutiques to the heft of their packaging. These are all elements that work together to fortify Cartier’s presentation of elegance.
What's the feeling that runs underneath the physical items or services that you sell? A financial management service might actually be selling peace of mind or security. A children's clothing line might really be selling nostalgia. If you’re not sure what you’re really selling, your marketing will rehash the features of your products and services rather than addressing the pain points and desires of your audience. Touting a product’s features alone are unlikely to move the needle for a client. Build a world using atmosphere and invention that addresses and alleviates your audience’s pain points and invite your client to step in.
You aren't embracing your differentiators
Why should a client choose you over every other business selling a similar product or service? If you can't answer that clearly, neither can they. Take a spin around your industry, and you'll likely spot the same handful of visual clichés repeated endlessly: a dumbbell or kettlebell in every fitness studio's logo from here to the Mississippi, a spine (that vaguely resembles a saxophone) in all physical therapist's logos. None of these symbols are terrible, but after seeing them on so many websites and storefronts, they become invisible. When everyone reaches for the same shorthand, it stops communicating the original message with a sense of impact. This is true for visual cues as well as brand messaging. Your brand’s differentiators—the things that are indisputably and notably true about your business—deserve more real estate in your brand than the industry default.
You're leaning away from your brand values
Remember Boutique Fitness? Their brand values included adjectives like holistic, sustainable and functional. These values attracted their target audience of middle-aged clients seeking help with nutrition and fitness at a foundational level. Their clients prized moderation, consistency and healthy habits over bodybuilding and bikini contests. But much of Boutique Fitness’ promotional marketing fell back on the same shame-based messaging that started with the advent of diet culture in the early 1980s (and hasn’t really let up since). Instead of leaning into their nutritional programs with promises of fewer cravings and digestive rest, they were touting the ubiquitous "beach body by summer." That messaging was off-brand and actively worked against the trust they were trying to build with their target audience.
When your marketing doesn't match your brand values, people notice, even if it’s only on a gut level. Brand values aren't just a tagline on your About page. They should be in the fabric of every headline and every image you put into the world. Think about some of your favorite brands. How did you first come to them? Why have you stayed? That's how people will come to you, too—and people have very short attention spans. Any disheveled brand moment can be enough to send a potential client navigating away. If you're a small business, you can't afford to lose these prospective clients. You could have the best product or service in the world, but if clients never make it past your brand, they won’t get the chance to discover how good you really are.
Need an outside perspective on your brand to see what’s working and what needs a refresh? Check out our Brand Audit, a comprehensive assessment of your existing brand and a tailored plan of action for moving your brand forward. The Brand Audit offers an opportunity to see your brand through the eyes of industry professionals and get a custom roadmap for where to go next.