9 big red flags that your branding is actually broken (& reasons for hope)
Rach demonstrating what it feels like when your branding is broken!
Nine reasons that your branding is broken. As a brand studio in South Devon, delivering branding for creatively-inclined businesses, we are adamant that branding is the foundation of successful business brands. When your branding is broken all sorts of things go wrong, and often brand owners are unaware, helpless and overwhelmed.
That sense that something is wrong, but being unable to know what to do is a classic sign that something is amiss with your branding.
Equally, when you have good, robust branding in place it gives you the clarity and confidence you need to make decisions and move your business forward.
Here are our nine top signs that your branding is broken and what to look out for.
Disappointment: a telltale sign your branding is in trouble
The first big red flag is when you feel disappointed with your socials, logo or website.
It’s exciting when you get your new branding and can show it off to the world. However, has that initial burst of excitement disappeared? It’s ironic, isn’t it, as after spending all that time, effort and expense in your branding? Surely this should be the start of a beautiful journey!
It’s a bit depressing, but we often hear this feedback from business brands that approach us. It’s a sure sign that something is broken in their branding. A successful brand should totally match up to the expectations set or built up in the process.
In short, it tends to mean that an aspect was not covered or clarified; or perhaps that the designs don’t match up with your vision as a brand owner.
Not attracting the right clients: is your brand sending mixed signals?
The second big red flag is when your branding is simply not attracting the right kind of clients.
The awesome power of branding is that it gives you clarity on who your ideal clients are and a blueprint for attracting them. In our branding services, we do this through in-depth consultations that explore your market position; customer profiles, so you are totally clear who you work with; as well as how you want clients to feel through engaging with you.
If you start to feel that you’re attracting and taking on clients that don’t match up to your ideals, that’s a big branding problem. This might be to do with low budget expectations; quibbling over pricing; or consistently changing the brief. Branding should align yourself with the right part of the market where your preferred clients reside.
Burnout: better branding helps bring balance
The third big red flag is when you, as the business owner, founder or director, are run ragged and overworked.
Ever feel like you’re tearing your hair out running wildly between different client projects, trying to keep everyone happy?
If so, this is symptomatic of a branding problem. Following on from above, if you keep attracting and taking on the wrong clients (perhaps out of desperation that no one else is knocking on your doorstep), this is the natural knock-on effect. Taking on too many low-value projects, means you suddenly have to fulfil them to keep cash coming into the business.
In contrast, if your branding is firing all cylinders, bringing in a steady flow of the right clients that value your services and who are prepared to pay what you charge, you’ve got the breathing space to schedule delivery of your services or build capacity to make and sell your products. Your branding is doing the hard work so you’re not desperately grabbing any old client.
Resentment: a strong brand allows you to charge what you’re worth & confidently
The fourth big red flag is when you realise you’ve started to resent your pricing.
If you’re starting to see the knock-on consequences of broken branding here, then you’re right on. Let’s pick up on that vicious cycle of taking on low-value projects; the mad rush of delivering them; and then lots of pressure to sell and get new clients over the line; and the whole process starts again.
If you’re overworked, under pressure from clients and praying for a big ticket client to give you a break, I imagine you’re going to be feeling pretty frustrated with the current state of play. Doing all that hard work and keeping clients happy when you don’t get much out to invest in your business or pay yourself is so frustrating.
Quite quickly no matter how much you sell, you’ll resent your pricing. Broken branding means you struggle to charge your worth; good branding allows you to reflect your value in your pricing.
Worry: inability to diagnose & unravel mysterious branding issues
The fifth big red flag is perplexing and worrying: things feel off, but you don’t know why.
The feeling that something is not quite right, but being unable to express why is a very big red flag in our books that your branding is broken. Typically people won’t realise until someone points it out, so can be a tricky situation.
A good branding process takes you on a deep dive into the fundamentals of your business. Often it reflects the personality of the brand owner and their particular journey that led to its creation. When things feel off, it’s often a sign that the branding hasn’t clarified the fundamentals that sit behind the scenes.
Equally, a common thing is that the brand owner or team is still unclear in its own mind about certain key aspects and they have been overlooked in the process. The trouble is, they will always surface down the line, and you will be none the wiser, but consistently confused.
Feeling stuck: a good brand avoids stagnation & allows you to move forward
The sixth big red flag is another troubling feeling: you want to move forward, but feel stuck.
Another very typical sign of broken branding is that you know there is a problem, but simply don’t know what to do, where to start or how to get unstuck.
A strength of good branding is its ability to give you direction and momentum in your business. Whenever you have a clear vision and identity in life, forward movement is much easer. Conversely, broken branding leaves you with identity problems, foundering and if there is movement, it is in the wrong direction.
Despite your best intentions wanting to move forward and resolve things, it is very difficult to get back on track without getting on top of your branding. Often it is better to stop, sort things out and then get going again. Attending to the internal side of branding, the brand strategy, is the first place to start in this situation.
Unclear purpose: your brand message should be evident
The seventh big red flag is that you can’t give a clear answer for what you do.
It might sound obvious, being able to say what you do, for whom and how you help in a business brand, but this is often not the case. Many business brands get started with a rough idea of a product or service, assuming that things are obvious or will fall into place. This is rarely the case, and if so requires a lot of self awareness and a conscious effort to work on branding alongside delivery.
Branding clarifies all the basics and fundamentals of a business so that they can then be expressed in its visual identity and the messaging required to engage your audience. Broken branding leaves you confused about this, or at least you find it difficult to express that every time and consistently.
As you can imagine, being able to give a clear answer for what you do is critical in order to be effective. Equally, communicating that consistently increases effectiveness.
Reliant on quick fixes: your branding should solve challenges
The eighth big red flag is that you keep patching things up (particularly visual or aesthetic fixes), but can’t pinpoint the root cause within your branding.
In our experience, businesses with broken branding do all sorts of things, without necessarily resolving the problem. Without a clear sense of brand, where do you go for the clarity to get momentum? In this situation, people listen to lots of sources in the hope that they will resolve the issue.
Brands do all sorts of things in the hope that they will solve their current problems. Some of the ones we’ve observed are: trying to improve the SEO on their website; running a social media campaign; or perhaps even scrapping their website and starting again.
The reason that feelings of uncertainty and confusion point to broken branding is because your branding should answer all the questions that you need to market and move your business forward. Without the clarity and confidence around how you’re solving client pain points and the messaging you need to communicate that, it’s really difficult to get on top of the situation.
Lack of profitability: a brand strategy leads to sustainable revenue
The final big red flag is that you (and by extension, your branding) can’t make your business pay for itself.
At the end of the day, good branding has a positive impact on the bottom line of your business.
Read more in our blog on brand archetypes: Introducing the power of brand archetypes
It makes a difference and a really valuable one - earning you more money than you would with weak or broken branding. Plus you’ll stand out from your competitors, which feeds into why branding brings in revenue.
As you may have guessed, broken branding contributes to the poor performance of a business. Being unable to make a business stack up is an awful position to be in or as they say ‘an expensive hobby’.
We’re not saying that you need to sink a small fortune into branding - competing priorities need to to be balanced in your business - but a wise investment of a comparatively small amount can yield excellent results. Equally, for best results and the best visuals, you need to put a healthy investment in.
If you’ve had niggly feelings about your branding in the past, ask yourself whether you resonate with these questions in your small business and see what you can uncover. If you’d like to learn more from us on branding or get visual inspiration, follow @wildings.studio on Instagram. You can read more of our blogs on branding too.
