Rebranding isn’t just about choosing a new logo and tagline. That’s just the outer most layer of your rebranding. However, every change whether little or big, is all for a specific purpose.
Rebranding is like renovating your house. You wouldn’t start with repainting the walls – like starting with changing your logo. You would typically go through your reasons for renovating first:
- The look is outdated
- The function is broken
- You feel sick of it, feels old, not on trend
- Trying to maintain it here and there costs more in the long-term
- When guests come, they’re not impressed – you’re not memorable
Surprisingly, all these reasons apply to reasons why business owners choose to rebrand and refresh your marketing strategy. But ultimately, you would do it to increase sales. So let’s go straight into the Rebranding Process.
Do your research.
When rebranding, your main focus is how do you satisfy your ideal customers? Do your research and find the answer to the following questions:
- Who is your current customer – what’s the demographics? What’s their wants and needs? How do they perceive your brand??
- How does your branding (logo, tagline, advertising style, celebrities endorsing your brand etc) compare to your competitors? Do you look outdated?
- What is your employees’ perception of the brand?
- Why do your prospect leave?
- How do current thought leaders and influencers perceive your brand?
Have your strategy on paper.
Business owners often keep all their ideas and strategy in their heads as we rely so heavily on ourselves to get things done. But the power of properly documenting your Rebranding Plan is immense. You must be clear with your progress and your ideas must be aligned – especially when communicating with stakeholders.
Have the following headings in the Rebranding Plan:
- Timeline
- Budget
- Key objectives
- Research behind your decisions
- Competitive repositioning
- Implications for each department in your company
This will help you keep everyone on the same page (literally), whether they’re in-house or third-party. The plan should clearly state each role and their responsibilities. Everyone will be able to see who is accountable for what.
Document the progress.
The last thing you want is to go back a million emails, lost invoices, listen to “he said, she said” so on and so forth. Here’s some tips:
- If you had a face-to-face meeting, write an email to the people involved dot-pointing the topics covered and the tasks that needs to be actioned.
- Changes should be documented in written form – email is easiest.
- Organise your inbox with folders. This will save you time when looking for something. And if things go bad, you’ll have your written proof.
Announce it to the world.
Now that everything is ready, you can announce your new brand! To do it effectively, divide the Marketing and PR Strategy. For each campaign, we recommend involving Marketing and PR professionals to help you. Each strategy involves layers of knowledge, experience and connections.
Internal Marketing Campaigns. Your employees will naturally become your advocates.
- Create excitement and enthusiasm
- Hold a big meeting to announce the new brand
- Send and share promotional posts/images/videos and emails
Public campaigns. Have a solid Social Media Marketing Strategy.
- Create aesthetic and engaging posts for your Social Media. Take advantage of paid/sponsored ads on Facebook and Instagram.
- PR Strategy – prepare a press release, and send that to many different media companies plus your client list. Target relevant influencers that your customers follow.
Events. Launch parties are always exciting and makes the invitees feel special.
- Invite everyone: clients, influencers, the press, employees, members of the community.
- Encourage people to take lots of photos and post them on their own social media! Make sure your @company_name and #event is used. This means your event should be Instagram friendly and visually stimulating!
Rebranding is a major step so be sure that your strategy is solid! Major brands such as Coca Cola, Apple, Microsoft and so on spend millions on their Rebranding. Successful campaigns demonstrate that they evolve with their customers and remain relevant. Every rebranding efforts go through channels of professionals!
Need help with rebranding? Book a complimentary 20 minute consultation with us!
