Blog by Patty Carter
Is it Time to Rebrand Your Company?
Every successful company has a strong brand identity. A brand is essential to every successful company or organization. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small locally owned business, a giant corporation, or a startup company—you need a brand.
Why? The answer is in the difference between bandage and Band Aid, copy and Xerox, soda and Coke. One is just a product; the other is an experience. You don’t create a relationship with gauze or carbonated sugar drink. You create a relationship with a brand that believes boo boos will feel better with a Band Aid and happiness can be achieved by sharing a Coke. Brands transform ordinary products or services into memorable experiences, and these experiences drive repeat purchases. Without a brand, Coke is reduced to just a sugar drink that is carbonated.
Eighty-two percent of U.S. adults claim they are loyal to a product or brand. Sixty-four percent of consumers say shared values are the primary reason they have a relationship with a brand. At the very least, branding earns you greater visibility. Color can increase brand recognition by up to 80%. Every color has a meaning and a personality, and why selecting the right color for your logo is important to your business.
Strong brands grow recognition, increase the value of your business, generate new customers, and instill employee pride.
However, it’s possible your brand can change. Your business might outgrow your brand or parts of it. Old brands will hold you back if they don’t convey your business’s capabilities and fails to support your business goals.
So, the big question -
How do you know when it’s time for a rebrand?
Warp & Woof Media can help your small business rebrand and explore your options for a new, brand identity. Let’s take a look at some reasons for why you would need to rebrand:
1. Your Brand is No Longer Competitive
Most small businesses have competitors. However, when those competitor brands become more memorable than yours, a rebranded identity can help you rise to the top and catch the eye among your key audience.
2. Your Brand is Outdated
While brands serve a company many years, they don’t last forever. Preferences can change in cultures and brands must adapt to stay relevant. Whether your logo, font or colors are dated; your phone number may need to be changed in your logo; or your logo image is an old graphic, it could be preventing you from attracting new clients in a competitive market.
3. Your Business has Expanded
If your brand is holding you back from future growth, it’s time for a rebrand. Sometimes it’s obvious, like if your logo features a residential home and you want to expand to commercial properties. You need a new brand to reflect your broadened focus. Also, you may need a more dynamic brand to roll out your new or modernized products and services. Your old brand may confuse your audience of your new and improved product or services. A new identity can make your business growth feel exciting and relevant to audiences. Maybe your brand has your location in the name, this can prevent you from expanding into new areas. Greenville Heating & Air will have customers assuming you only service the city of Greenville.
4. Your Brand Lacks Authenticity
It’s important for your brand to reflect your company values and for it to feel authentic. Sixty-four percent of consumers say shared values are the number one reason they have a relationship with a brand. Consumers expect brands to take a stand. If your brand doesn’t reflect who you are and what you stand for, it’s time to rebrand.
5. You’re Targeting a New Audience
Brands should always speak to the people they’re trying to reach. So naturally, if you’re trying to reach more people or different kinds of people, you want a brand that will engage with them. This might call for a rebrand.
6. There’s a Company Change, Merger, or Acquisition
When businesses change their executive structure, merge, or acquire new companies, they need a new brand to match the changes in services and culture.
The Rebrand Plan and Process
A rebrand is a big undertaking and usually requires the help of an agency. At Warp & Woof Media, we can help you every step of the way. There are a million things to think about when you embark on a rebrand. You may have the best branding ever, but if it isn’t implemented correctly or properly rolled out, it won’t make the impact you want it to. It is so important to make a Rebranding plan. Rebranding a business takes time and effort. Working with professionals will ensure each brand element is part of a cohesive whole.
Pre-Rollout
One of the best ways to make your rebrand go smoothly is to anticipate, prepare, and spot false steps as much as possible. Part of this includes planning for your rollout ahead of time.
• Who needs to be notified of your rebrand? Customers, Employees, Vendors.
• Who will create the new assets? Ad agency, Graphic Artist, Printer, etc.
• When will you launch? Choose a launch day and be reasonable with everything that needs to be done.
• Who is in charge? To ensure a successful launch, create a rebrand calendar and assign key employees to take on responsibilities. The calendar should include deadlines, timelines and checklists.
Bonus: Throughout the entire process, you will spot opportunities, inconsistencies and identify how to use resources more effectively.
First things first: Rebrand Story
Creating your new brand is all about good story telling. To begin telling your story, performing a “Brand Audit” will help define your company mission statement, record its history, establish a timeline of important dates and successes, expose its competition, uncover its strengths and weaknesses, create an advertising strategy and direct a clear path for its future.
Once your rebrand story is written, it will help to retell your brand story consistently across all platforms. A consistent story will also help in content for the “about’ page on your new website, create social media posts, write press releases, and distribute to online company descriptions, etc.
Visual Representation: Brand Style Guideline & Brand Voice
This is the part of the rebranding strategy where you develop the visual elements that will communicate your brand. Think firm name, logo, tagline, colors, business card design, stationary, and the like. These elements are often described in a brand style guidelines document, which provides a set of parameters to ensure your brand is implemented consistently across all your marketing materials. Your brand is your reputation and your visibility, not your firm’s name or its logo. Your brand style is a sort of visual shorthand for your brand.
What is your Brand Voice?
A brand voice refers to the personality and emotion infused into a company’s communications.
It encompasses everything from the words and language you use, to the personality and image your marketing assets aim to invoke. A Brand Voice is the distinct personality a brand takes on in its communications. (Down-to-earth, positive, witty, elegant, strong, aggressive, a little bit of dry humor, classic, serious, etc.) It plays an important role in making sure your message cuts through the noise and makes a lasting impression on potential customers.
Logo, Tagline, Website Design
The first thing to start the rebrand process is to design the new company logo and create a tagline. Company logos and taglines are one of the most important brand elements. About half of people say a tagline helps them make a purchasing decision. If your ad agency is doing it correctly, they will expose your company’s values and visual preferences. Once they are established, your website design can begin.
The website design is a creative collaborate effort between the ad agency and the company leaders. One of the biggest challenges is content. Content needs to be relevant, industry-correct, and authentic. It is so important for small business owners to have their brand voice on their site and make sure the messaging is correct.
Behind the scenes: New URL, Old Domain Redirect, SEM, SEO
If your company undertakes a rebrand, it most likely is already directing traffic to an outdated website. In some instances, a small business would like to discover a new URL/domain name that better represents its brand and their upcoming new website. The process of a new URL discovery can be a challenge. Currently, there are more than 360 million registered domain names. This leads to many people saying that all good domains are already taken. Warp & Woof Media can help you discover a new URL that compliments your new brand. We will also help you seamlessly redirect your old domain to your new website in a timely manner.
If you are currently running any online digital advertising, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) campaigns on any search engines, or any social media campaigns, we will make sure to switch over your ad assets to redirect to the new URL without compromising your campaigns.
Along with your new website design, Warp & Woof Media will make sure to optimize your site with keywords and phrases. As mentioned earlier, content is so important to not only providing the best information to your consumer, it also tells search engines like Google, why your site is the best answer to their user’s inquiries. Visual content also needs to be fed descriptions so search engines know what story your photos or videos are providing. This process can be painstakingly long and tedious but needs to be done, and it is important to make sure this process is done before you launch your site.
Here a few more behind the scenes items, to consider when taking on a rebrand:
Administration
Email addresses
Email signatures
Business cards
Internal documents (employee handbook, financial documents)
External documents (sales materials, presentations)
Financial materials (e.g., invoices)
Trademarks
External and Internal Signage
Ad verbiage
Update third-party directories
Tip: Major items, such as signage, website, and other definitive brand assets,
should be prioritized.
Start Building Excitement
You want to start building buzz about a month or so before your launch date. Create ways for your customer to be curious about what's going on, but you don't want to draw it out so much that they forget about you. Here are some things you can do to start building the buzz about your new website and rebrand!
1. Have your website designer create a “coming soon” page up on your website. In the last few days of your launch, you can even have a countdown to build excitement. It is a great way to capture your audience by offering them a place to get on your email list to get info when you are ready to launch.
2. Share “behind the scenes” and “sneak peeks” on all your social media platforms. Email your customers a newsletter explaining all your upcoming changes. If you are deciding on a new logo, share a few of your favorites with your customers so they can be part of the process. Things like getting a delivery of new business cards, a picture from your branding photoshoot or a selfie of your face when your designer sent you a screenshot of your new about page. Anything fun like that - People love sneak peeks!
3. Have a giveaway or contest the week before or the day of your launch. This is a great way to build your email list and get more followers on your social media platforms. It gets people excited about what you offer. You could give away a free coaching session, gift card, service discount or a FREE product giveaway! Something that won't take up too much of your time but would be valuable to your ideal client.
4. One more fun way to create buzz is to create a video about your launch or go live with a Facebook Live Event or YouTube video. You can share your story, talk about the “why” behind the changes and what you are most excited about. If you choose to promote online, you can even run those videos as an ad on Facebook and Instagram to get a little more reach. Think outside the box when it comes to building buzz. This should be fun!
It’s Rollout Time
Is your site ready for Launch? A great test run is to launch your rebrand internally first.
An internal launch can be considered a soft launch. It’s the best way to get everyone on board, work out any kinks, and bring the whole team into the brand story so that they can best represent the brand. It builds teamwork and excitement for all.
Walk your employees through the brand story, from inception to final execution. (A good rebrand is a good story; if you don’t have that, that might be a red flag.)
Encourage feedback and questions and put the brand in their hands! (fun swag, games, quizzes, or brand color-themed parties can generate a lot of excitement)
A rebrand is an exciting endeavor, but it’s not the end of your brand story. Preserving your brand integrity is crucial to help your brand penetrate the market and have true staying power, and that requires diligent work.
Only after all your brand assets and channels have been prepared, pre-launch communications have been issued, and your internal team is intimately familiar with the new brand should you introduce your new brand to the outside world.
If you’ve taken a long hard look at your small business and feel it’s time for a Rebrand, call Warp & Woof Media at 678-471-8811. We'll build a customized, rebranding package specific for your company and walk you through every step of the process. We know you have a business to run and not a lot of time to handle a major Rebrand. Let Warp & Woof Media successfully take care of your Rebranding project. We'll help you love your brand again and help you start reaching your business goals! https://www.warpandwoofmedia.com/
