September 12, 2019

Most organizations find the need to rebrand their identity or product at some point. Over time, the product can change vastly. Also, the firm can evolve or experience a negative event that results in poor publicity. Other reasons for a rebranding include dated branding, a change in the target demographic, the emergence of new competitors, technological shifts or emerging taste trends. Rebranding lets the company strengthen its image and public presence while addressing changes. This article provides step-by-step instructions to businesses to help rebrand their product or company.

Identify Your Adjectives

Start by determining your reasons for undertaking the rebranding. This helps guide your next step: taking stock. You need to conduct an analysis of what to keep and discard from the present branding. Keep what resonates with your existing target audience. Your branding refers to the personality of your corporation and provides the catalyst and connection for customers to emotionally experience your business. Develop a list of adjectives that you want your brand to be described with, and then use that list to guide your branding decisions. You need to include a market and competition analysis in this step to make an informed rebrand that keeps you contemporary with competitors.

Developing Branded Elements

Before you jump into redesigning your logo or website, you need to devote time to rebranding the core of your business: its mission, vision, and values. Revisit these three underlying elements to provide your rebranded company with the firm foundation it requires. Once you have your foundation established, move on to the visible elements of the rebrand. Rebranding usually requires coming up with a new logo. Send your logo project to a full-service digital marketing company that can translate your adjectives to an illustration that accurately represents your firm. 

Once you have the new logo, rebrand your company letterhead and promotional materials, such as brochures, postcards and your website. Your redesigned website will also require updated creative content, which will likely require a public relations or writing agency to create search engine optimized content with the personality of the rebranded product or company. You may also need to create new packaging for your products that features your updated look.

Update Your Social Media

Once you go live with your new website, you should also update your social media. Transparently share with your followers why and how you’ve rebranded. This minimizes the risk of customer confusion and helps strengthen brand loyalty. When rebranding social media, start with Facebook. With the highest count of users, this is the first place you should ensure is brand-matched to your web presence. Next, move to Twitter, publicizing your rebrand in a similar manner. Include a video on Twitter since posts with photos and videos perform better on that platform. Finally, move on to the social media that’s most photo-intensive. Pinterest and Instagram work best with photographs, while Snapchat works best with video.

Customer Service and Rebranding

The rebrand must extend past the outer, physical elements and transform the inner workings of a company. One key element of that, your customer service department, provides a touchpoint that every customer has the potential to need or use. You must develop high standards for your customer service personnel that express your rebranded firm’s personality and core values. Beyond customer service representatives, you also need to ensure that each person in the company integrates the rebranded mission, values and vision into their own work activities and interactions with others.

Request Feedback

You determine the success of your rebranding effort by obtaining feedback from your target audience. Conduct formal surveys or focus groups to determine what your rebrand means to them and their opinions on it. You may find that your rebrand does not resound with your customers, but don’t despair. Work on the rebrand and make small changes that provide the message and address the needs of the customer.

Rebranding can provide a needed update to a product or company, and it can save your firm from a public-relations fiasco or represent its evolution. A rebrand requires much more than a logo change or a name change. It requires a genuine alteration of the mission that the logo and other promotional materials merely represent visually.