Rebranding might seem like climbing a mountain, but it doesn’t need to be this way. Rebrands can be messy. It’s essential to remain organized and meticulous throughout the process. Following this eight-step guide to rebranding will set you up for success when you begin your journey to rebrand. The tips in this guide are focused on preparation and provide the necessary clarity to ensure that your team is prepared to complete an effective Rebrand.
We’ve helped our clients create successes through their rebrands utilizing this technique, and our goal is to bring some color to the process we employ for our customers and, more recently, for our own.
Table of Contents
Eight Steps to an Effective Rebrand
1. Discover Why You Need a Rebrand
Before you embark on your brand rebranding venture, be sure that there is a reason behind the decision. A successful rebrand was designed with the customer journey in mind and can address your identified issues. Rebranding is a resource-intensive process and is dangerous for the ill prepared. Ensure the rebrand accommodates everyone involved, including your staff and customers. The following questions can aid in setting the scene and help you understand how to start the process of rebranding.
What happens if I’d like to rebrand my company, but my team does not?
If there’s a dispute between your team and you regarding the importance of rebranding, you might be able to have different views on the customer’s issues and the journey. This is an excellent chance to re-create your customer journey to identify the current issues they face and reflect on the effectiveness of your efforts at easing these issues; if rebranding is the right choice, an in-depth and joint analysis of the reason will help to improve the team alignment and provide direction.
What happens if my company would like to rebrand, but I’m not sure?
This is also an excellent chance to think about the customer journey. Consider why your team wants to rebrand, and then step back and look at the larger perspective. Consider your team’s perspective on how your brand’s current image is serving your company and your customers. Often you are within close contact with their customers and may have insights that are difficult to identify from a high-level view.
What happens if we want to change our brand, but our customers do not?
If you notice that your customers are affixed to your brand’s current image and won’t accept changing it, consider finding out why. A best of both worlds approach is at work for you, and you may carry your brand’s old image with you in case you’re afraid of losing your customer base. Instead of a complete overhaul, it’s possible to do a brand refresh. Be the most effective option.
What happens if my staff and I don’t want to change our brand, but our customers prefer it?
If you and your staff aren’t convinced of rebranding your business, but your customers are, there is likely a bigger issue. Engage with your customers and discover the reason behind their opinion. Your customers are your ultimate choice makers; not listening to them can cause problems. Do keep in mind that your customers are important but maintaining a strong direction and drive for the brand is going to pay off in the long term.
2. Make Your Team
We have discussed how important it is to have alignment within the team in our blog on rebranding the second time and also the creation of a role to aid your team in achieving alignment while you go through the rebranding process. Teams that lack direction or alignment could lose their way when they attempt to rebuild the brand and learn it all while trying to balance their roles within the business.
Your brand’s rebranding is dependent upon alignment. A successful rebrand is synergistic with the company’s culture, and your company’s culture is shaped and supported by the employees who work within it. Therefore, you must ensure everyone is moving towards the same goal!
3. Discover Your Fan Club
Who are your top customers, and where do they live? Who are your most loyal customers who would put your logo on their sleeves and a sticker on their laptop? Do they make up the core of your company’s business? A satisfied client fan club is a happy advocate and representative for your business who is more than willing to share the news about the rebrand once it’s finished with their friends, family, and everyone else around them. You are making your brand successful by keeping your fan group in mind can eliminate many of the risks that come with changing your brand.
Keep your fans content and maintain the relationship you’ve worked hard to cultivate. After identifying your fan base and the fan club’s members, you can decide the elements of your current brand you’d like to keep and which ones you’ll need to change with something fresh and fresh. It’s okay if you have to lose some of your customers because they’re likely to be unconvinced and fading anyways.
You can always ask your fan club for input and run ideas past them to get their initial thoughts and feelings. This feedback can ensure you are not locked in a business bubble.
4. Examine the Competitors
Customers can join multiple fan clubs. Do you have fans who also support your rivals? Do your competitors have fan clubs that you would like to join? While you analyze your competitors, be aware of the specifics. If your browser supports plugins, you can download the plugin that extracts valuable information from other websites like creative assets, fonts and color codes, etc. This is an efficient and easy method to gather details without letting on. One such example could be CSS Peeper; However, numerous others exist. Check out your competitors’ advertisements, look at their metadata, and copy within search results and the text on their website. Look for patterns in their brand as well as the way they write on their website and what they are doing on social media. Are they formal enough? Does it make sense to the kind of customer they’re trying to draw? Does it appeal to your fan base?
Once you have gathered the information, examine the information comprehensively and comprehensively. Find out the “why” that is behind your competitor’s identity. It’s crucial to understand that the way that your competitors are operating isn’t always the most effective approach to go about your business. There are many questions brought up when you look at the competitors, and a snarky decision of your competitors is likely a mistake that you can improve on. When you compare your competitors to them, you’ll discover commonalities and patterns that reflect a more precise picture of your industry.
5. Study Yourself
After completing a competitive analysis:
- Conduct the same for yourself.
- Take a look at your website, and pull out your fonts, colors, creative assets, and any other elements you can attach with your branding.
- Once you have the list, look at it and compare it with the information you’ve collected from your competitors. You’ll be able to identify significant similarities and differences that can lead to a new method to distinguish your business.
Perhaps, you’ll discover things your competitors are doing which is beneficial. In this instance, you need to find out why your competitors are using it and why it’s successful. Take it, tweak it, and integrate it into your brand. Use the idea of reverse engineering success.
Every brand has both positives and negatives. The problem is that what is effective for one brand might not be a good fit for an entirely different. This is why it’s crucial to take a thorough and thorough analysis of the data you’re collecting in the same way you have done with your competition. Then, tying the data to the bigger picture will eliminate the clutter and give incredible clarity for the next process phase.
6. Lay Your Foundation
In this stage, you and your team should be able to see a complete picture of your business, your competitors, and your customers. It is now time to develop your brand’s identity. Like building a house building a brand, creating your brand begins by laying the groundwork. The foundation is the answer to the question what is it that puts the world in danger? What are you trying to save us from? A more streamlined version is What is your purpose? Your foundation is the apex and point of reference for all that follows. Take the time and be careful when you complete this task.
Once you have your foundation set, It’s now time to create your brand’s foundations. They expand (or create!) upon the foundation, providing the customer with clarity and explaining in plain words what it is you’re here to accomplish. As you build your pillars, consider these questions:
- Difference: How will you change your life in a different manner from everyone other people?
- Importance: Why should we care? What is it that makes you memorable?
- Credibility: How will joining your fan club help me improve my life and my social credibility?
- Information: What are you doing to help us better understand your brand’s identity? What can we share with your social circle?
7. Fill in the Details.
The process of filling with the details is the part that is the iceberg, and this list is only the beginning of it. If you’re looking to look under the water and get into the specifics.
In essence, this step is where you’ll pick your name and logo, choose your font, color palette, and any little detail to be done prior to launching your business. This is a long hour, yet it’s extremely satisfying. It’s where your team’s dream and dedication become tangible. Inputting the details into your brand’s identity is a lengthy and technically demanding task. Therefore, it is essential to partner with a brand specialist. This process isn’t always easy to DIY because consistency and effectiveness are the keys to success. When you work together as a team, everything should begin to make sense. Be aware that decisions must be taken with the foundations and elements of your company in your mind!
8. Take the Sandpaper Out
Suppose you’ve succeeded in completing the steps before. Congratulations! You’re almost done. A little. It’s a good thing. Already have an initial sketch of your company’s brand, with each of the essential elements covered and each gap covered. The next step is polishing the draft you’ve created and transforming it into something you’re proud to share with the world. This is a continual and cyclical process in which you’re always listening and gathering feedback from your customers.
The first step to sanding your image is to rework the peripheral assets you have. Things like newsletter templates, email signatures, letterheads, sales deliverables, and Social media accounts are easy to lose. Assets that your team utilizes monthly or quarterly will not be on the radar. However, your customers may feel like you didn’t take care of these things if they get them in their outdated and outdated state.
After looking over your old and new assets, the focus is now on continual improvement and optimization. Whatever effort and time you invest into your new brand, it’s likely to leave out something. It’s human nature, at the end of the day, so don’t be concerned about it. If you did an excellent job of laying your foundations and pillars, your customers would be able to understand that too! The constant focus on an event like a rebrand for a prolonged period of time may cause your team to become disengaged. Your customers are the ultimate decision-makers, and the most appealing aspect is that they were not involved in the process of rebranding. They’ll be able to see a new set of eyes, with important insights which you could never have discovered by yourself.
Build The Buzz for Your Rebrand
While there are only eight steps, we count “building buzz” to be the 9th step. It’s worth its own section since it’s a continuous process that’s so crucial that it merits the spotlight. In the beginning, you’ll need to create a buzz throughout the process so that you can prepare your customers for the launch. Releasing sneak peeks or news on the rebrand will create excitement and excitement.
Rebranding is a new beginning, and your team is likely to start the process on the right foot. Find creative ways to communicate with your target audience across multiple channels and create anticipation. Plan a customer-appreciation event for the big reveal, send email updates, and post social media sneak previews and behind-the-scenes snapshots at different stages of the rebranding process. Create a landing page with hints about your new brand identity. Directly address your customers and let them know that they’re on your mind when you’re completing your revamp. It’s important to create an impression of your clients as insiders “in the aware” without divulging too much so that the launch doesn’t have any impact. Everyone wants to feel an identity and having your customers feel confident in the brand before the launch (again, but without divulging excessively!) is the most effective fan-club way to recruit.
Rebranding can be a difficult process but it doesn’t have to be!
