Study reveals the top 5 small business branding sins

Research has uncovered the most common pitfalls small businesses make when branding themselves and found 98% of companies are guilty of at least one.

The study, released in the Vistaprint Small Business Uniqueness Report, surveyed 1000 UK business websites. It showed brands are failing to differentiate, risking losing out on sales opportunities, and jeopardising wider UK economic growth, according to Vistaprint.

The top 5 pitfalls are:

1. Cliched/overused adjectives
   A third of small businesses use clichéd adjectives to describe themselves, the most commonly-used descriptors being ‘friendly’, ‘independent’, ‘specialist’, ‘family-run’, and ‘experienced’.

2. Lacking colour confidence
   Nearly all (98%) of small businesses only use one main colour as their logo, and 46% use the colour blue in their branding, while one in four small business websites use a white background.

3. Inconsistent font style
   Some 77% of UK small businesses use more than one font type on website copy, and 51% use more than three.

4. Non-descript portrayal
   Just over two-thirds of 68% of small businesses only use one or two descriptive adjectives on their web pages, meaning businesses lack a clear identity.

5. Missing image relevancy
   Around 5% of small businesses had unrelated or no imagery on their website.