12 moves that will destroy or deteriorate your brand

From ignoring your logo to including every piece of contact information possible in your email signature, here are a dozen things to avoid to maintain brand harmony.

Lots of small businesses can’t or don’t have a dedicated marketing professional, and that’s totally understandable. However, doing things that actively destroy or deteriorate your brand is not. Here are 12 things you need to avoid:

1. No logo

You think I’m making this one up? Nope. I regularly run into businesses that have never committed to a logo. Last year, I had a client who has been in business for 40 years, and its biggest problem is that it had no market recognition. For 40 years it squandered the opportunity to build an identity because it never wanted to pay for a logo.

2. Logo inconsistency

Having your logo change every so many years is just as bad as having no logo. Yes, it’s OK to have a “refreshing” of your logo if it’s just so “80s” that you can’t stand it, but frequent change means that you never earn a recognizable status.

3. No brand imaging

You should have a company font, a standard layout for important documents, and publications, and all of your employees should be held to these standards. This will avoid one of your “artistic” employees from becoming Comic Sans-crazy.

4. Lack of a corporate voice

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