Summertime is right around the corner! Many people tend to slow things down a bit to soak up some sun and grab some R&R. Many organizations take this “slower” season to really take a look at their organization: What have been our achievements? Where can we improve?
The change in seasons can be an opportunity to consider new branding and marketing strategies. But watch-out: there are common marketing mistakes many organizations make during this rebranding process. We asked Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder & CEO of Mavens & Moguls, for her thoughts on rebranding.
Rachel: So what are some common branding mistakes that organizations make?
Paige: It’s interesting because it doesn’t matter what type or size of organization you’re talking about, there are some themes that tend to emerge across all kinds of organizations.
One of the biggest problems I see is that they don’t have a consistent strategy or plan. And so we always encourage organizations to come up with two or maximum three things that they want to stand for and have everybody constantly reinforcing those messages in everything that you do at every touch point.
Also when you’re developing new marketing material and new marketing messaging, you spend months working on it and by the time you start using it, you’re bored with it. You’ve already been living with it for weeks or months on end.
So you start your campaign, you get your new language up on your website, you print up your new brochure and immediately you’re like, Ok, now what are we going to do? And the problem is your customer hasn’t even really been exposed to it at that point.
You have to constantly reinforce and repeat those core messages over and over and over. And you’re going to be bored with it, but your customers are just starting to pay attention to it at the moment you’re ready to move on.
That’s why you have to pick one, two or maximum three things that you want to stand for and be known for and just repeat it until you are blue in the face. I know that sounds crazy, but trust me that’s really an easy mistake that anybody could fix if you just concentrate.