Is your business in need of a re-brand?
There are many reasons that your business may need to rebrand such as:
- Better storytelling
- Targeting new audiences
- Becoming more relevant to current customers and audiences
- A change in name, vision or business philosophies
Whatever the reason, your decision to re-brand your company should not be taken lightly.
Re-branding is not just about having a shiny new logo and mission statement, instead it is about offering your audience an opportunity to get to know your brand better.
To achieve this, you really need to come up with a strategy that allows you to implement all the necessary changes without confusing your customers and costing you time.
Here are 6 steps to re-branding without the chaos:
1. Go Within
The decision to re-brand usually starts with the intention of fixing a problem or creating a solution for your customers. If this is not the case, it is really important to ask yourself – “Why?”
Re-branding is definitely not something to be taken lightly so try to come up with a few valid reasons and proof as to how it may benefit your business.
Even if there may be one main reason that your company is re-branding, try to list as many benefits as you can in order to get the most out of the changes.
Alternatively, if you create your “why list” and your reasons are not as valid as you thought, it may be worthwhile re-considering your re-branding strategy. Remember, if it’s not broken don’t waste your time fixing it!
Re-branding is sometimes necessary, but if you are doing it more than 1-2 times within a year, you may have to stop and ask yourself if your changes are really helping or hindering your business.
2. Research
A clever re-branding strategy will be backed up with analytics from sites like Google Analytics and other market research that proves not only the changes that need to be made but also how to improve them.
For example, if 99 percent of your viewers are using their mobile device to access your site, perhaps it is worthwhile considering re-branding your business to be more mobile-friendly.
To collect solid data it may also be worthwhile reaching out to employees, current and past customers, prospects, influencers, experts and even competitors to see where your current branding strategy is failing and where it can improve.
Once you have some solid research under your belt, you can begin making a short list of all the changes that you want to make and how you are going to improve upon them based on the facts.
3. Internal Re-branding
This is a step that many business owners tend to overlook but it is an important one.
Re-branding is not just about changing what the public sees but it is also about making internal shifts within your company. This involves including employees on the changes and implementing new protocols and strategies to help your employees understand the new strategy and how it works.
For example, if you are changing the way your brand tells stories than it is imperative that all your staff understand what the changes are and what the brands new mission statement is.
Basically, this step is all about matching the new identity of your brand with the people who are working on it everyday!
4. Set a Timeline
Re-branding can either happen slowly or quickly, the choice is yours but the decision will all depend on your target audience and the individual needs of your business.
Whatever your time frame is, it is important to have a timeline of events that outline when all the changes are going to take place. Be sure to map out time for planning, integration and testing.
For example, your timeline may look something like this:
Q1:
- Set intention for a rebrand
- Collect data that supports intention
- Market research to see how the re-brand can actually improve business and customer relations
- Devise strategies for the rebrand
Q2:
- Select new logo design
- Update website (purchase new domain)
- Upgrade and update features that will not directly effect customers
- Integrate all changes
Q3:
- Notify customers of changes in new marketing strategy
- Test changes and tweak accordingly
As you can see from this timeline, a large re-branding strategy may take nearly up to a year to implement however, smaller changes may only take a month or so.
5. Set a budget
Re-branding can sometimes be costly so it is important to allocate funds and resources to ensure that you can fund the changes you want to make.
When allocating a budget, be sure to also have some money set aside for unexpected costs that my arise through the process.
Depending on the way your company is structured you may also have to adjust the budgets allocated for other projects in order to fund your strategy.
For example, you may have to take the 5% of revenues spent on marketing and allocate 10-20% of them to the re-brand.
6. Execute
Once you have the strategy in place it is time to implement the changes and watch how they help improve your business.
During the implementation stage, you may also want to have a clear outline of who is doing what and what day the changes will take effect to keep everything running smoothly.
Once the changes have been made, it is also important to watch them for the next few months to see how your audience is responding.
Are you ready to re-brand your business?
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