Branding Mistakes that are Costing You Money

An important concept to be aware of in business is your opportunity cost—"the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen".

In short, what are you missing out on as a result of the choices you make?

It's not only WHAT you do that's crucial, it's also what you don't do.

Having a solid brand requires that you have an awareness of the marketing activities that will drive the most revenue and success. See below for a list of the most common missed opportunities that we see brands struggle with:

Skimping on your photography budget

If I had to pick just ONE element of your overall brand that can truly "make it or break it", it'd be your brand's photography.

Humans are extremely visual creatures and make a subconscious snap judgment as soon as they lay eyes on your imagery.

You want the hero section of your site to be crystal clear, engaging, and communicative. It should clearly demonstrate your product with a little bit of flair (AKA not just on a plain white background).

A lot of brands forget to carve out budget for professional photography in the initial brand building process.

You MAY be able to DIY your photos, but from what I can see 85% of brands who try to do this just aren't cutting it quality-wise.

Prioritizing social over email

New business owners make the mistake of thinking that their Instagram feed is their end-all, be-all marketing platform of choice. I'm pretty sure the below statistics will change your mind:

Agency Analytics states that:

Email marketing generates $38 for every $1 spent—an astounding 3800% ROI.
Social media comes in at a distant second place with an estimated average ROI of 28%.

Say what?!

It's definitely important to have a stunning social presence, but if you're not emphasizing the importance of email marketing in your business, you are missing out on some serious dollar bills.

Plus, with email, you "own" your audience—protecting you from potentially losing access to your audience in a social account (which is super common with Instagram's habit of wrongly shutting down accounts lately).

Glossing over customer retention

Harvard Business Review states that acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. This is a HUGE difference!

It's fun to put a lot of thought into growing your audience and attracting new customers, but you should be putting in just as much (if not more) effort into making past customers happy and engaged.

A few ways you can do this are offering customer-only sales, reaching out for product feedback, sharing their user-generated content on your socials, and overall considering how your post-purchase funnel consistently increases your average customer lifetime value.

Focusing on keeping past customers happy will also reap dividends when it comes to word-of-mouth marketing.

Forgetting to upsell

Sumo.com shares a couple of statistics that will make you want to hop on over to the Shopify App Store to find a good upsell app ASAP:

Upselling increases revenue by 10-30% on average.
Upsells are 68% more affordable than acquiring a new customer.

Upselling in E-commerce is the same idea as the gum in the checkout lane at a grocery store—making it easy for customers to add low-cost items to their carts on your way out is a way to significantly raise your revenue at a really low cost.

In Conclusion

Take a step back and really consider what opportunities your brand may be missing out on when it comes to growing your audience and revenue.

It's important to not only go with your gut feeling here—you also want to take a look at the average ROI of the different strategies available to you so that you can be sure you're maximizing your efforts and reaping the rewards.

Want to chat about the potential blind spots in your brand? Schedule a free 30-minute discovery call with us today.

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