DIY Branding vs. Professional Branding: What’s Best for Your Business?

Nailing your business’ branding is in today’s crowded marketplace more important than ever before. I have said this so many times and will keep on repeating it: Unfortunately it’s not enough that you have an amazing product if your branding sucks. Your brand is the bridge between your clients and the product.

You have two options when it comes to creating your brand: 

1. Do it yourself.

2. Invest in a professional. 

Creating your own brand is not impossible, let’s start from there, but it does come with a different price…

First, what is branding and why

should you care about it?

Simple and short: Your brand is how people feel about you and what they say about you when you are not there. 

And why should you care about your brand? Well if people don’t say nice things about you, then it’s harder to convince them and others into buying your services or products. But imagine the opposite situation: your branding is on point and your audience enjoys it and feels connected to it. This makes people say good things about your business, the word will spread and others don't want to miss out on what you offer! Just saying.

The DIY way of building your own brand

PROS:

✅ It’s cost-effective for startups and businesses with tight budgets. This is the obvious number one pro of doing things yourself.

✅ Creative control of the outcome and chance to express your own visions. This is great if you are really passionate about the visuals, have a clear vision of the concept and are good with basic design tools.

✅ Opportunity to learn and understand your business on a deeper level. This means learning to create your brand strategy, which is mapping out everything that you need in order to create a strong base for your brand’s visual identity.

✅ Speed and flexibility with the branding process. When you do it yourself, you don’t have to wait for anything or anyone and can do things exactly the way you want. 

CONS:

❌ Creating brand guidelines is time-consuming and overwhelming without a clear process. A professional has done the process several times and is fluent with it. They know where to start, what to do next and which parts need more attention. Doing the research yourself and learning the process takes a lot of your time, not to mention creating all the visuals. 

❌ Risk of inconsistency or amateur visuals which don’t resonate. In the end a professional has a massive storage of ideas in their brains, that has been accumulated over time by observing, thinking and learning. They know what works and what doesn't.

❌ Potential to miss something, which ends up with having a weak brand. A professional has already made the mistakes so that you don’t have to repeat them. It’s a big waste of time if you start building your brand by following a weak DIY strategy and using poor visuals. 

❌ Being biassed or having some blind spots when working too close to your own brand. You might have an idea, which you are excited about and think it is spot on, but perhaps you can’t see that it’s not quite the perfect match with your brand. A professional can spot these better and come up with creative new ideas, which perhaps you wouldn’t have come up with.

The professional approach of hiring branding experts

PROS:

✅ Strategic clarity from previous brand audits, market research and client work. Experts have experience, which they’ll bring into your brand. They know to look into details that you might miss, and they have systems in place for doing the same work more efficiently and thoroughly.

✅ High quality-design that is cohesive and unique. Nothing to add here. 

✅ Outside perspective helps you to define your unique edge. You might be too close to your business and brand, in order to see all the branding possibilities and lines of inquiry when searching and putting together that perfect brand strategy.

✅ Saves you time and brings quality results. DIY branding will take a lot more time versus if a professional does it. On top of that you might miss something that the experts would’ve noticed. 

CONS:

❌ Higher cost. Well yes, but I’d say it’s often worth it. 

❌ Requires trust and collaboration with an outside party. This is tricky, because you do need to feel like you trust the experts in order to have a truly fruitful collaboration and that's why not every agency is a match. So trust your gut feeling with this. There are countless branding experts so I’m sure you’ll find the right match. 

How to decide, which one is the best way for you?

I can recommend DIY branding for those who are visually talented and have a very strong vision of their brand’s visual identity. BUT a good visual identity is built on a well-crafted strategy, which you might not be entirely fluent with. In this case I’d recommend you to still use a brand agency even just as a consultant along the process. With this combo you’ll definitely create a kick-ass brand!

For the rest I say that you need to evaluate what is your budget and what do you want to achieve with your brand.

• What is your current budget and timeline?

• Do you have time to DIY properly?

• Is your brand strategy clear to you?

• Are you a visual person and good with colours and designing layouts?

• Are you familiar with basic design tools?

If you answered "NO" to two or more questions, I’d consider working with an expert. 

There are also few hybrid options to consider:

1. Have a brand coaching or a strategy session without the full-service design. This will give you a good understanding of what direction to go with your visual identity and how to build a strong brand.

2. You could invest in templates or semi-custom branding. Just be mindful that you don't buy just some templates that look nice, but they should also align with your brand strategy.

3. Start by DIY and level up professionally later. No shame in there, you gotta start somewhere. 🔥 Just keep in mind that a good brand can be a game-changer for your business and remember to level up, when the time is right. Your brand should grow along your business 🚀

Key Takeaways

• Having a good brand has never been as valuable as it is today.

• There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to building a brand. 

• You can DIY a good brand, it’s just a lot of learning and costs a lot of hours.

• A professional delivers quality results and everything that you'll need but it does cost money. 

Like I said, there is no one-size-fits-all. If you are struggling with finding the best option for your business, don’t hesitate to reach out and we’ll figure out what you could do next. 👋🏼

ANASTASIA POLJATSCHENKO

Graphic Designer / Brand Specialist

Co-founder of Groove Media