3 Brand Building Myths

With technological advancement bringing increased awareness, almost all businesses know that in order to enhance their customer base, sales, and profits, they should take working towards building their brand seriously. Since a well-known brand name has the capacity to attract valuable clients and allows a business to stand out from the crowd, you can understand that good branding can do wonders for your business.

Today, many business owners do not establish their businesses on a solid foundation which can destroy their business or cripple their ability to generate the needed income. Do you know why this happens? Because they place too much emphasis on the wrong areas which negatively impacts every aspect of their business. Why do many businesses focus on the wrong areas? It is because they fall for some common brand building myths. 

In the primary stages of building a brand identity, many entrepreneurs and business owners spend a lot of money on branding techniques that are not effective for their business. Just because some businesses are having success using outdated and ineffective branding techniques, is no surety that they will also have the same result for you. In this article, you are going to learn about the 3 most common brand building myths which can hurt a business in the long run. 

1. Brand Building is an Expense

Many business owners consider brand building as an expense and avoid putting any money, as well as any effort into building their brands. However, they are wrong because brand building is an investment that leads to increased consumer awareness, customer loyalty, and associated qualities. This investment matures in the form of higher sales and profits. Business owners might find these intangible characteristics difficult to value, but this does not mean that they should not invest money and effort into building their brands.

With this thought, a logical question arises:  What amount should you invest in building your brand? In this regard, different experts give different estimates based on what branding strategy is used, but we can provide you with a credible and finite range. The bottom line is that you should invest around 15 to 20 percent of your expected gross annual revenue in brand building. This amount is usually applied to employing branding strategist(s), web and graphic designers, marketing experts, social media experts, copywriters, and other relevant sources to help you perfect your brand’s image.

2. Word-of-Mouth Publicity Automatically Leads to Success

This is another myth responsible for the failure of businesses, especially in their initial stages. Many business owners and entrepreneurs do not believe in spending even a penny on building their brands. They think that word-of-mouth publicity will kick in and automatically build their brand for them. This was a possibility several years back for small industries, and when there was less competition. Today is a new era with numerous options for marketing and completely different consumer behavior. Assuming that word-of-mouth publicity automatically leads to success is not true and will make it more difficult for your business to make an impact.  

If today you want to gain through word-of-mouth, there is no need to wait for it to kick in anymore. Instead, make it happen by building an informative and engaging blog about your products or the services you offer. When your potential customers go through the valuable content on your blog, they will make word-of-mouth work for you in a more relevant and up-to-date way.

3. More Money Spent on Brand Building Makes a Business More Profitable

This is one of the favorite phrases of almost every advertising salesperson and continuous repetition of this myth forces business owners to start believing it. There are many businesses who spend a lot of money on advertising their products and services in an unproductive way. Some fail to make relevant advertisements, some do not target their appropriate target audience, some do not advertise on relevant mediums, and some fail on all these fronts. With all these efforts, the money involved in these activities get wasted.

The best way to build a brand without spending much money is to utilize the media effectively. When you provide valuable content through broadcasting, print, and online media, your brand gains huge exposure and credibility which are essential ingredients of brand building. 

Most businesses fall for these 3 brand building myths but now that you know about them, you can work towards building your brand in a more realistic and effective manner. In other words, you can take steps now that clearly express your brand’s message. You can now connect with your target audience and generate those profits you know your business is capable of.