The real cost of a DIY brand

Written By Eva Van der Borght

You started your business and hit the ground running. You got everything together quickly, figured out suppliers, marketing strategies, advertising possibilities, but you didn't have the time or the funds to invest in your branding. So you did what every reasonable business owner does at the start of their journey to keep costs down. You DIY'd your branding.

All has been fine and well and now you're years further, but business seems to be stalling, slowing down. Nothing against DIY'ing your brand, because you do what you need to do. And DIY works, until it doesn't. That's when your brand starts costing you money instead of making you money.

And the frustrating part? Most of those costs are invisible, as in you don’t even know these are happening because they don’t instantly jump out at you on the page. There's no reminder that says "revenue lost because my website looks like I made it at 11pm on a Sunday" (even though that's exactly what happened). But they add up. Lurking in the shadows, quietly, and over a much longer period than you'd think until you finally notice you have a leaking hole in your boat.

So let's talk about what a DIY brand is actually costing you.

Your time!

More often than not, we don’t think time is important enough to be seen as a cost. The amount of DIY projects I have done that would’ve been cheaper if I had hired somebody to do it in a week instead of dragging it out for months is… uncountable.

Every hour you spend fiddling in Canva, watching YouTube tutorials on kerning (WHY?!), googling "what colours go with sage green," or remaking your Instagram templates for the fourth time this month because you saw a different style that better suits you—that's an hour you're not spending on your actual business.

You're not emailing. You're not developing your new product. You're not building the relationships that bring in referrals. What you are doing: moving pixels around a page. Multiple. Times. (And this is why we get paid the big bucks (lol), we do the pixel moving ;)) And the worst part is it doesn't even feel like wasted time while you're doing it, because you're technically "working on your business." Start thinking about ALL of your time as billable. An hour spent on moving pixels, you just spent $100.

Add up the hours you spend on design tasks every month. Multiply that by what your time is actually worth. That number is probably uncomfortable.

Your pricing power

When your brand looks DIY, people assume your prices are DIY too. If you are honest yourself, products that look like they’re made in someone’s basement don’t really scream luxury right? It doesn't matter how good your product is or how experienced you are, if your packaging, your website, or your social media looks like it was put together on a budget, people will push back on your price.

I've seen business owners who are brilliant at what they do, genuinely brilliant, but they're undercharging because their brand doesn't communicate the value of what they're selling. They know their work is worth more, but every time they try to raise their prices, people suck their teeth and back out. A lot of the time this is the gap between what they deliver and what their brand looks like.

Professional branding doesn't just make you look good. It gives you permission to charge what you're worth. It gives your customers permission to pay it without second-guessing themselves.

Your confidence

You know that feeling when someone asks for your website or your Instagram and you hesitate for just a second before sharing it? That tiny cringe coming deep from the pit of your stomach? While you hand out the card and say: “We’re still working on the website”—always that disclaimer for the ever perfectionist tendencies.

It might seem like it doesn’t really matter, it’s just a small little thing I say (EVERY TIME!). It’s affecting how you show up in your business every single day. You post less because you're not proud of how your grid looks. You hold off on pitching to that stockist because your packaging isn't where you want it to be yet. You are limiting yourself and you might not even notice it.

Every time you shrink instead of showing up, that's a missed opportunity. And those missed opportunities have a price tag, even if you never see the invoice.

The clients you're attracting (& the ones you're losing)

Your can look at your brand as a filter. It either attracts the right people or it attracts the wrong ones. The wrong ones are going to be difficult, you’re going to jump through hoops for them and in the end they might not even commit. A DIY brand that looks scrappy and thrown together will often attract clients who are looking for cheap and quick. Well, isn’t that's the signal you're sending?

Meanwhile, the clients you actually want? The ones with proper budgets who value quality (Ahhh the dreamclient)? They're looking at your website, your packaging, your social media, and they're making a decision in seconds. Research shows it takes 0.05 seconds (THAT IS LESS THAN A SECOND!) for someone to form an opinion about your website. That is NOT a typo. Fifty milliseconds. So your potential clients have already decided how they feel about you before they've scrolled past your header. If what they see doesn't match the level of quality they expect, they move on like a car making a quick u-turn.

The inconsistency tax

When you DIY, things tend to drift. You made your logo in one app, your social templates in another, your packaging labels in a third. You picked a font you liked six months ago but you can't remember which one it was so now you're using something similar-ish. Your colours look different on screen versus print versus your website header (typical RGB vs CMYK issue you overlook). This is why we use brand guidelines girlfriend!

None of this feels like a big deal on its own. But put it all together in your big web of red yarn and you've got a brand that looks like it belongs to several completely different businesses. And every time a customer encounters that inconsistency, it chips away at their trust a tiny bit, by bit, by bit. Recognition is built on repetition, and repetition needs consistency. Studies have found that using a consistent colour palette increases brand recognition by up to 80% (Reboot, 2018). Without it, you're starting from scratch every single time someone sees you.

The cost of doing it twice

Look, this is where every brand eventually ends up. Almost every business owner who DIYs their branding eventually invests in branding made by a designer (who knows what they are doing and thinks about your brand strategy). Which means you're not saving money by doing it yourself. In essence you're paying for it twice. The first time with all of the time you’ve spent, all the confidence you’ve dented like a second hand car and all of the revenue that disappeared in thin air instead of filling your wallet. And then again, when you hire someone to do it properly (Because hiring a brand designer is an investment, no way around that).

I'm not saying this to make you feel bad. DIY'ing your brand at the start was the right call. ABSO-FRICKING-LUTELY. You needed to move fast and keep costs down, and that's exactly what you did. Give yoruself a pat on the back for that. But if your business has grown since then—and trust me you are past the “scrappy startup phase” and are now in the "I'm actually building something real" phase—the DIY brand isn't serving you anymore. It served its purpose, but it’s no longer working. You have to let go. “Let it go, let it go, it can’t hold you back anymore”, as a smart Elsa once said. Build something that is worth your genius and can keep up with your plans!

Wondering where your brand stands right now?

I made a free Brand Reality Check that takes about 15 minutes and gives you an honest look at where the gaps are. Sometimes you might have to think hard about it, but that's the point. Better to know now than to keep wondering why things feel stuck—and we love a thrifty girly who does her homework before spending a big chunk of change.

Grab the free brand reality check!

Sources:

  • Lindgaard, G., Fernandes, G., Dudek, C., & Brown, J. (2006). "Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!" Behaviour & Information Technology, 25(2), 115–126. — The study behind the 0.05-second first impression stat.

  • Reboot (2018). "The Impact of Brand Colour on Brand Recognition." — The study behind the 80% brand recognition through consistent colour palette stat.

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Eva Van der Borght
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