Brand marketing is a multi-faceted process that takes a lot of planning and careful execution. More importantly, key decisions about marketing direction, channels and resources have to be made along the way concerning all those facets, from in-market product research to analysis of customer insights and beyond.

Since nobody is perfect, it follows that mistakes will be made along the way. Below you’ll find some of the most common mistakes made by even the biggest and most well-known brands when it comes to marketing.

1. Not Enough Time and Resources on Market Research

This is among the most common mistakes that entrepreneurs and business operators make when launching products and services into the marketplace. It’s quite rare for a business to have absolutely zero sense of what the market wants, but most common is that people only explore the market to the tiniest degree.

For example, sharing a product among friends and family of the company founders or staff is not necessarily the best-possible sample when you’re trying to determine viability or popularity among a wider segment of society. Companies that invest more time and resources into getting accurate and detailed marketing research information are those who are better placed to make good decisions and will minimise their errors.

2. Lack of Product Testing

When you start marketing and promoting products and services that have not been properly market tested, then you are essentially inviting trouble to your workplace, and to your brand’s reputation. Of course, there will always be creases to iron out early on, but the point of spending time thoroughly testing how your products and services work in the public arena is to minimise those potential hiccups.

A sudden wave of negative feedback could send your brand’s image and reputation irrevocably downwards as the word starts to spread to steer clear. With careful and controlled testing groups, the worst of the problems can be found. Consumers can be quite forgiving of minor issues, but won’t tolerate sloppy brands that just release any old rubbish out there.

3. Poor Positioning

Market positioning refers to how a business’s products and services are priced within the wider market, and the demographics that they target. For instance, if you’re a specialist budget car dealer, then you have a wide demographic of low- and middle-income families and prices need to be low. If you’re trying to position yourself as a car dealer to the wealthy, however, then your brand is all off.

Taking the time to understand who your top customers are, what they want, and how you can position your product or service to help them is a step you cannot miss. Alas, many businesses still make this mistake.

4. Failure to Identify Most Powerful USPs

A USP is a unique selling proposition (or point), and being able to identify your own is key to building a successful brand. The world’s most powerful brands have instant distinction from others and people never mistake them. To get there, you need your own USP, but many businesses fail to find theirs.

A classic branding mistake is to focus on overly generic points like price and quality. Goods everywhere are generally cheaper and of better quality than in years past. That’s just progress. Let’s use our budget car dealer as an example. Imagine that all the cars they sell include in each price comprehensive insurance, 24-months free servicing, and a discount petrol card usable at hundreds of stations nationwide. That’s an impressive USP, but the dealer instead just says “our cars are cheap!” This is where the dealer is missing a trick!

5. Not Working to Get Repeat Customers

Finally, another classic branding mistake is endlessly pushing to bring in new fans and customers rather than retaining and nurturing your existing ones. It ends up trapping you in spiralling costs and potentially worsening relationships with those critical customers you’ve already worked hard to get.