Is your brand ready for an update? Rebranding your business can help you grow, and it is not a step to be taken lightly. If you’re losing competitive ground, are failing to attract top talent, or if you and your customers are just plain tired of your current brand identity, it might be time for an upgrade.
WHEN TO REBRAND
If your profits are dropping and your competitors are surging ahead, this might be a clear sign to rebrand. Renovating image could be just what you need to make you more competitive, and create a newsworthy story to get your new logo in front of potential customers.
The need to rebrand it not always obvious. Take a close look at your brand identity, and ask yourself if its outdated. Whether it’s not reflecting technological advances of the world or your industry, or just uses colors and fonts that are out of style, you might need to move on. Your brand image can help you put your best face forward, so make sure it echoes what a cool, innovative company you are. Similarly, a new logo that reflects the type of office culture that talented professionals are seeking can help you attract great talent to your company.
HOW TO REBRAND
Rebranding is a process that should take a lot of time, research, and experiments. When you do make chances, they need to be right ones. Updating your business too frequently will confuse your customers and ultimately destroy your competitive edge. So get it right the first time with these steps:
To start, take a close look at your company. What is running smoothly and what is not? Don’t fix something that isn’t broken, so you need to be clear from the start about what problem you are trying to solve. Remind yourself of your business’s mission statement before you sit down and decide what outcome you want to achieve from rebranding.
Next, talk to loyal customers and current employees to get their opinion. Find out what they like and don’t like. How hard is it to do business with your company? Have you clearly communicated your positioning? Do you have good price value? Where do you rate in terms of customer satisfaction and brand differentiation? These questions, plus market research and research on your competition can help you determine where you could improve.
Before you move forward, see if your rebranding should include targeting a new market. Appealing to a new demographic could get you a whole new group of loyal customers, who can also help give you direction on your logo, potential new products, and overall brand identity.
Now, it’s time to make a plan of action. This should lie out what is wrong, how you will fix it, and when the changes are going to take place. Make a list of all the marketing aspects of your business that will need to be updated such as logos, signs, websites, social media, invoices, and more. Go over this and make sure you haven’t forgotten anything, and prepare yourself for a rebranding!
Communicate the upcoming changes to your employees, if possible, so they know what to expect. After your rebranding is complete, get your employees excited about the change by including them by handing out t-shirts and free giveaways with the new logo and brand. You can even give this swag to customers and clients.
One the rebranding happens, be prepared to tell a story. Whether its evolution or revolution, if you are going to change, you have to tell the story why. Communicate in a way that reflects your brand, whether that’s with a video, witty press release, or other unique way.
