As your business grows and changes, how your logo and branding are perceived must evolve to suit where you are now.
When the time comes, knowing how to rebrand or freshen an existing brand for your business will play a crucial role in keeping your brand relevant. Here we’ll provide you with steps to rebrand your business so that your new image will be a success.
But first, how do you know when it’s time to update your brand? Here are three key signals:
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Outdated Look and Feel - This can encompass multiple areas of your branding, from the experience of your website to the company logo. Consider all of your advertising collateral as well, like a radio jingle, for example. Radio listeners tend to form a snap judgment based on what they hear, so having a modern jingle versus something outdated makes a huge difference.
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Your Business Has Grown - A common case for rebranding occurs when a business has outgrown its previous brand image. Your customer base, products, and services might all have expanded since the original marketing plan and successful rebranding will reflect and be congruent with all of these changes.
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Reaching the Wrong Audience / Not Achieving Results - There are a number of factors that contribute to your business reaching the right audience, but you still need to consider whether or not your branding fits with your target audience. Your products or services should be portrayed as essential to your customers and if your branding doesn’t achieve that, it’s probably time for a change.
If your business is experiencing one or more of the above, it’s time to rebrand. Here are six steps to a smooth business rebrand:
1. Assess Your Budget
Determining your budget for a rebranding effort requires prioritization of several tasks. Simply updating your logo and website won’t cut it, you’ll have to do a complete audit of any and all marketing collateral. This can include business cards, vehicles with branding, company uniforms/clothing, and promotional items. This can be a daunting task for many people, often resulting in the business person simply giving up. Or on the other extreme, the owner will blow their entire year’s advertising budget on a complete rebrand and have nothing left. It’s best to strike a balance between your budget and your needs to rebrand.
2. Clearly Redefine Your Business
Next, you will want to create a clear vision of your rebranded business, and how you think it will look in the future. More specifically, define what changes need to be made in order for your vision to be fully realized, and create branding ideas that are congruent.
3. Identify Areas for Rebranding
This is basically an audit or review of your entire marketing operations. The main creative elements usually are the logo, store design, and/or the look and feel of your website. But you’ll also want to take a look at brochures, live events, or radio/TV commercials you normally engage in.
4. Start with Your Creative Elements and Logo
Before picking specific colors and shapes, think more about the “look and feel” you want to achieve with your rebrand. Different colors have different connotations for consumers. For example, red is a more aggressive color than blue or white. With that in mind, you’ll be able to decide on a comprehensive creative scheme for your rebrand and design creative elements that fit perfectly.
5. Carry Things Over to Your Website
The next logical step is to take your new logo and creative scheme and apply it to your website. You’ll want to make sure that your website is consistent with your new color scheme and logo. Also, consider how the rebrand will affect the functionality of your website. If your rebrand screams simple and modern, don’t clutter your website with dated design and imagery. An old-looking website with poor functionality can kill a rebranding effort altogether.
6. Apply the Rebrand to All of Your Marketing
Once you’ve completed your rebrand and applied it to your website, it’s then time to take a close look at each area and element of your marketing in order to determine what changes need to be made. Accommodating your new creative elements normally necessitate some adjustments to make sure your brand is consistent across all your marketing channels.
And there you have how to rebrand your business in six clear steps. Rebranding isn’t something that can happen overnight, and you need to be committed to the process in order to achieve a desirable (and profitable) outcome.
Do you have any rebranding success stories to share? Let us know in the comments!
Originally published 2/5/16 - Updated 5/25/23