8 brand messaging mistakes to avoid (at ALL costs)
We all want to get our brand messaging right, but there are traps that some marketers fall into... maybe a little too often.
And uh oh, you are mostly likely one of those marketers.
Check out the common brand messaging mistakes to avoid (/you’re probably making already), but let’s start with the basics first.
What is brand messaging?
Brand messaging is how you, as marketers, communicate just how great your brand is to your target audience. This includes your brand’s unique value proposition, its personality, its tone of voice.
The ideal brand messaging framework looks at:
- Buyer personas or customer profiles
- Positioning statement or brand promise
- Competitor analysis and your brand differentiators
- Overall tone of voice and personality
- That 60-second (or less) elevator pitch
8 brand messaging mistakes you’re probably making
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Forgetting about your target audience
Your customers or ideal prospects need to be at the forefront of your marketing minds. Without a deep understanding of your ideal customer profile and their pain points, your marketing efforts can quickly go to waste.
Sure, certain ways of doing things might be easier, quicker, cheaper... but if it’s not hitting the right audience, or doesn’t resonate with that audience, that’s your whole marketing team’s time, money and energy out the window.
The solution: Developing detailed buyer personas and customer profiles that are easily accessible to everyone in the team.
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Overcomplicating it
Overcomplicating or overthinking your brand messaging only leads to confusion; confusion of your marketing team and confusion of your customers. Two things you don’t want if you’re looking for creativity, productivity, efficiency and return–on–investment – you know, all that good stuff.
Ideally, your brand messaging needs to be simple for your whole team to understand and worth with, and it should stand the test of time (until your next rebrand or target audience switch-up, at least).
There should be no confusion or mixed signals across the board, and it should be completely clear what your audience should do next – and why they’d want to do such a thing.
The solution: Clear messaging will help drive brand awareness, brand identity, brand recognition, brand growth, and brand omg-I-can't-live-without-this.
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Ignoring customer experience
It’s not just about marketing to the customer, it’s also about the whole experience you provide your customers; the experience that ultimately leads them down the funnel to converting, keeps them coming back, or keeps them onboard as a client.
When considering the customer experience in terms of your brand messaging, we’re talking about bringing forward value to your customer through your content, including:
- Landing pages
- Blog
- Social media
- Email and PR
- Paid media
- Video
Within this content and your content strategy, you need messaging for each stage of the sales funnel: awareness, consideration, decision, retention and advocacy. Remember, every interaction is an opportunity to reinforce your brand message and deliver on your promises.
The solution: By aligning your brand messaging with the customer experience, you create a seamless journey that not only attracts new customers but builds lasting relationships.
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Ignoring the brand experience
🚨 Spoiler alert: People buy into your brand just as much as they buy into your products.
Too many companies only focus on product features or services, overlooking the crucial element – the brand experience. Without it, your messaging will feel flat, impersonal, and just lacking that somethin’ somethin’.
Your brand is more than just what you sell – it's a story that resonates with your audience. To create more compelling brand messaging:
- Tell your brand story: Share your company's journey, challenges, and triumphs to humanize your brand and create an emotional connection.
- Showcase key values: Highlight what your brand stands for beyond profits. Whether it's sustainability, innovation, or community support, let these values shine through in your messaging.
- Embrace storytelling: People are naturally drawn to narratives. Use storytelling techniques in your content to make your brand more memorable and relatable.
The solution: Use your messaging to let your brand story and brand personality shine; doing this will help you create deeper and more meaningful connections with your audience... see ya later, competitors.
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Having zero brand guidelines
Another common (and costly) mistake in brand messaging is having no brand guidelines. Without clear guidelines, your brand’s voice will be little (or a lottle) all over the place.
Think about the different teams in your marketing department. Left to their own devices, you'll see a wide array of content styles and tones of voice across channels, which only leads to a confusing and inconsistent brand experience for their audience.
👎 Thumbs down to no team alignment.
Before anyone starts rolling their eyes – brand guidelines aren't about stifling creativity; they're about providing a framework within which your team can innovate while staying true to your brand's core essence.
The solution: Invest in comprehensive brand guidelines (please), to ensure consistency and safeguard the personality that makes your brand so special.
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Using low quality visuals
Talking about consistent content in your brand messaging, you can’t forget about visuals.
Considering 65% of the population are visual learners, they’re kinda a big deal.
When we land on a page that has low quality images or graphics or strange website design, it can be a real mood killer. It can affect brand authority, and ultimately, ruin any chance of a conversion.
Visual inconsistencies can creep in all too easily, with logos, colors, and design elements used haphazardly, weakening brand recognition too.
The solution: Don’t ever, EVER skimp on design because it’s way too important for that – always schedule an appropriate amount of time for your design team to come up with something magical before you publish any content.
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Lacking real direction
Ever feel like your brand messaging is all over the place? That's what happens when you don't have a clear direction. It's tempting to just go with the flow or jump on every trend going, but this approach only leads to inconsistent messaging that confuses your audience.
Without a solid strategy, your brand voice might swing from super professional one day to trying too hard to be cool the next. This lack of consistency makes it hard for people to connect with your brand or understand what you're really about.
When you’ve got a clear direction, your messaging becomes more consistent, authentic, and effective. Your audience will know what to expect from you, and your marketing efforts will have a much bigger impact.
The solution: Develop an overarching strategy that aligns all your marketing efforts, including your brand messaging. Define your brand's voice, values, and goals to give yourself a flexible framework to work within.
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Just copying competitors
Here’s another common trap: simply mimicking what your competitors do. It’s tempting to check out successful brands in your industry and think, “If it works for them, it’s gonna work for us”.
But do you want to blend into the background noise of your industry? No, you do NOT.
When you're just echoing your competitors, you're missing out on showcasing what makes your brand unique. Where's your value proposition? What spice does your brand bring to the table? By copying others, you're only hiding all that good stuff under a borrowed identity.
The solution: Focus on what makes your brand special to really stand out from the crowd; identify your unique selling points and let them shine through in your messaging.
The overall solution? An integrated marketing strategy
Looking at each of these brand messaging mistakes, they have a common outcome detrimental to the growth of your team, customer base, and business: inconsistency.
An integrated marketing strategy is the solution to inconsistencies in both the marketing experience (MX) and the customer experience (CX). For real.
Here’s why:
- Unified brand voice: Consistent messaging across all marketing channels
- Improved team alignment: Everyone is on the same page, always
- Seamless customer journey: No conflicting messaging within the funnel
- Increased efficiency: Streamlined processes and avoiding duplication of efforts
- Data-driven decisions: Working more closely together means more data to share
And more! In short, an integrated marketing strategy is the most effective kind of marketing strategy if you want to reach (and exceed) those long-term goals with your brand building.
Integrated marketing bridges the gap between your internal operations and external communications, helping build both creativity and collaboration within your team, and trust and loyalty from your customers through consistent, value-driven messaging.
How Optimizely improves your messaging alignment
Optimizely Content Marketing Platform is a marketing solution that’s literally designed to align your team so they can create the very best (and consistent) digital experiences for your customers, with a lot less stress than you’re used to.
With Optimizely Content Platform, you can:
- Streamline your marketing processes
- Boost your team’s productivity
- Forget writer's or creative block with embedded AI
- Measure the performance of your content
- Be your most productive self ✨
Sounds pretty good, right? See how Optimizely Content Marketing Platform can benefit the marketing efforts behind your brand, you won’t regret it.
