We are still fairly new to 2021 and I’m sure most of us have given up on our New Year resolutions. New Year, New Me…. that didn’t happen in this office, nor should it be a thing for your brand. Rebranding is something that should have some serious consideration behind it. We want to help YOU decide whether it’s time your business needs a rebrand.
Here are our top five things to think about when rebranding.
- Understanding your brand strategy.
- Research your competition, market and audience.
- Realise what needs rebranding.
- Get your team on board with the changes.
- The transition.
BRAND STRATEGY
Rebranding isn’t something that should be done on a whim. Without proper thought, not only could it be an expensive mistake, but you also run the risk of damaging your brand reputation and distancing your demographic. So how do you prevent this from happening? Come to us with a brand strategy.
What is a brand strategy? By definition, a brand strategy is a long-term plan for the development of a successful brand to achieve specific goals. A well-defined and executed brand strategy affects all aspects of a business and is directly connected to consumer needs, emotions, and competitive environments.
While composing your brand strategy you need to think about where your brand is visible. May it be digital marketing, social media, print marketing, merch…the list goes on. Make sure your rebrand is suitable for all areas of marketing so it continues to work for you.
Having a good brand strategy in place is crucial for success.
RESEARCH
Knowing why you want to rebrand sometimes gets overlooked. Don’t think because your competitor has, that you need to as well. If you have looked at your analytics and seen valid reasons why people aren’t staying on your website for long, then yes, a revamp of your website is needed to help improve those figures; this can be done via UX design and rebranding. Researching your place in the market is never a bad thing, having an understanding of where you are in your industry is a must.
Know if you are rebranding to reposition yourself within the market or stand out from the competition? Knowing your competition and how they are marketing themselves is crucial. You should aim to do this research quarterly.
MORE THAN JUST A LOGO
We have heard it time and time again. “A rebrand is just a logo and new website, right?!” WRONG.
A brand is so much more than its logo. When you think about your business, do you just consider the logo?
When we think about our brand we think about our personality, how we talk to our customers, our key message, our values etc. For a rebrand to be effective, all these elements need to be considered and consistent. There’s no point updating your logo to something sleek and modern if you’re company language is still very corporate!
GET YOUR TEAM ONBOARD
Rebranding isn’t just a task you can tick off your list and move on. Rebranding is something that involves every…single…employee. You need to get your team on board with the changes and make sure everyone understands the changes moving forward. A great way to do this is through brand guidelines. We have seen it more times than we would like, but so many brands don’t have brand guidelines.
What are brand guidelines? Brand guidelines (also known as “style guide”) are essentially a set of rules that explain how your brand works. These guidelines typically include basic information such as an overview of your brand’s history, vision, personality and key values. Along with this, they will include hex codes, fonts, font-weight, logo sizing and much more.
THE TRANSITION
Now you have your brand-new branding, you need to know the best way to transition this to avoid any confusion between your audience and employees. Think about all the things that will need to do to execute your new brand and roll everything out together with minimal disruption. This includes things such as your website, logo, social media profiles etc.
Ready to rebrand? Our highly skilled team will get to the heart of your business and get to know you inside out before the work begins. Get in touch today to discuss how we can help you refresh your branding!
