Should you rebrand your business and when?

What really is a brand? Many believe this to be a given company’s name, logo, slogan and other associated media. However, while important, these handful of examples and items do not tell the full story of the concept.

A brand is more than just a name or a logo, it’s about the experience, the recognition and the trust that you build with your customers and with those who are unaware of your business or company. It’s about relationships and exposure and because of this, the concept of the term ‘brand’ often gets confused with some simple commercial materials rather than looking at the whole picture.

The tone of your company’s voice also plays a crucial role in establishing such connections, hence why it needs to be up to par with the rest of your image.

However, every company or business evolves as they progress further and gain more customers and social presence. Because of this, some businesses might find that their tone doesn’t match their brand anymore, which is a telling sign that a rebrand should be initiated.

Rebranding your business is something natural, which occurs at some point in time during the development stages of the company. Rather than refraining from it, focus on keeping up with the current trends and make your brand suit your reflections and your audience.

Some might rebrand seamlessly, however, others might struggle and not know where to start. If you happen to fall into the latter group, then this article is just for you as we are going to aim to help by providing you with some useful tips, which you can use to identify whether the time for a rebrand has come as well as providing you with some tricks about the entire process.

Just remember that some companies go through multiple rebrand stages as they either outgrown their previous expectations or they change direction for their goods or services.

Keeping that in mind, let’s answer the question - why should you rebrand?

Separate yourself from the competition

Given the sheer amount of companies that operate on a global scale, you don’t have to search for long to find a competitor that has a similar brand image to yours, especially if you have just created your company and you wish to establish your newly created business on the market. This can be a similar logo or an identical color scheme. Maybe they even focus on the same things online as you do.

It is important to make your business stand out from the rest or you risk falling into the trap of irrelevancy. While sometimes you might not need to change the entire brand image, you must make some changes to help you be different from the rest.

If you had a generic logo while starting out, make sure to redesign it so that it aligns with your business, your goals and most importantly - your audience. 

If for example you are a tourist agency, try incorporating a clean, vibrant design with a logo that resembles traveling. In addition to using vibrancy, try to implement colors that also signal authority such as blue and yellow. Color theory is an important part of design in general and having the correct scheme can help you get more conversions.

In terms of audience, try to make your brand and your logo appeal to those people who you are targeting. Teenegers might be impressed more with something unconventional and creative, while adults could be fascinated by a cleaner and simpler design.

Your logo should be customly created just for your business, rather than being downloaded from a stock photo website. You need to put in the extra effort to find a graphic design that can produce something unique and recognizable so that your brand can flourish.

Social media is currently THE place to build your brand. While we had Facebook and Twitter in the past, new platforms have emerged such as YouTube, TikTok and even Twitch as a content streaming place, which can all be utilized to grow your brand.

Make sure to utilize social media and to publish content that reflects your business’ goals, while also showcasing your products or services. Just remember to always post content that will grow your public image positively as controversial posts can generate traffic, but they can also damage your overall brand.

Reinvigorate outdated branding

As we already mentioned before, some brands tend to outgrow themselves quite fast once they start hitting their business goals and begin to acquire more customers. Because of this, the initial branding that such companies might have had could become outdated, including their logo, advertising materials and tone.

A brand should always keep things fresh and make some changes every couple of years. This, however, doesn’t mean that you should be changing your logo every few months! Make subtle changes that will reflect the direction in which your business is headed. Make the logo illustrate the targeted audience that you wish to aim for. Maybe even try a different slogan or create new ones to use for your advertising campaigns.

Regardless, content tends to become outdated exceptionally quickly, especially during the current times, where technology is constantly evolving and there are new software solutions released every month.

Customers change their perception and can easily turn their attention to the competition. Because of this, you need to ensure that everything about your business and brand is always up to date and up to the standards and trends in the digital world.

This means that, in addition to tweaking your logo and slogans, you need to change the tone of your content to match that of your readers’ or customers’ expectations. If you have outdated blog content, go ahead and rewrite it, change the tone and the images and make them resemble what your business stands for.

Do not limit yourself just to logos and content, you can even change your name if necessary. If you believe that it is not as memorable as you thought when you began, simply rebrand the name. Just make sure that you inform your audience and existing customers in advance so that they can be aware of the upcoming changes. Plan the rebrand months in advance so that you can ensure that your reputation will stick with you even after the name change.

It is important to remember that rebranding does not mean lack of success, but rather a positive overload from it.

Redeem poor reputation

While we did say that rebranding does not mean lack of success, there are some cases in which that might not be true.

Startups can go through multiple iterations until they find the brand that they are happy with and which works for them. This process can take quite a while and is something that is a natural occurrence.

However, in some cases, a given company or business could have obtained some bad reputation either through public opinion or through the company’s own controversial actions. In these situations, a rebrand is definitely needed. 

Make sure to fix any issues and problems that your business has addressed inappropriately and try to redeem your reputation first. Only then can you proceed to implementing a rebrand.

In other cases, a given company’s reputation might be completely tarnished, meaning that the only thing left is to initiate a rebrand as quickly as possible. Remember though, that such companies need to think about what resulted in their reputation being devalued in the first place in order to avoid it happening again.

Rebrand to expand your business

Another instance where rebranding could be a potential option that you would wish to take is when expanding to new markets.

Let’s say you're a business, based in Europe and you wish to start targeting more regions worldwide. You could perhaps think about a name change, maybe adding in an adjective that can signal that your company does business across the planet such as ‘global’, ‘worldwide’ and others.

You might have to think of a name that will be recognizable by both audiences, which can also force you into rebranding. Sometimes, you might just have to perform little tweaks and changes to your overall appearance and brand image or your tone.

If you are uncertain whether you should rebrand once you have expanded, here are some useful questions that can consider:

• Do you need to change your products or services in terms of the new mark to remain relevant?
• Who are your main competitors and what are they like? Does your brand overlap with any of them?
• Are there any new features or aspects that you need to implement in order to fit into the new market?

Questions to ask prior to rebranding

Overall, when it comes to rebranding there are 5 easy questions that you can ask yourself. The answers will be a good indicator of whether the time has come for you to rebrand. These questions are the following.

What do you want your business to be associated with?

If the answer to this is the same things that you are currently being recognized for in your area of expertise and targeted market, then you should continue doing what you are doing. However, if you wish to convey a different message to your audience and expand your reach, then you should consider rebranding as an option.

Do you have a targeted market or audience?

If you know your audience and the people that your goods or services are aimed at, then you are on the right track. But, if you haven’t got a clue about the audience, which you are going to be targeting, you should think about rebranding and switching your focus to a set group of people.

What marketing strategies are you using?

The next thing that you need to consider is the marketing strategies that you are currently employing. Are you using social media? Are you advertising your goods or services to the appropriate audience using the correct tools?

For example, elderly people read the paper more than teens. On the other hand, teenagers are much more engaged with technology than adults. Having the correct marketing and advertising strategy to target your primary audience is crucial.

Sometimes this might require rebranding as your brand name and image could be better utilized with different marketing efforts.

How can customers benefit from your brand and wow do you express that in your campaigns and overall design?

This question refers to the overall image that your brand has on the market. Do you express your brand according to your values and principles? Can customers identify with your stance on different topics and issues?

Being able to entice customers to purchase your goods or subscribe to your services is one thing, but making them see the benefit that your brand can offer in the grand scheme of things is another.

Think about creating an everlasting, memorable image that can clearly represent your views and opinions to the general audience, who might not be acquainted with what you do or offer.

Is your brand memorable?

Ultimately, all questions lead to whether your brand can be considered as memorable. If you have heard or seen people talking online about your company by tracking your brand mentions, then you can rest assured that you are being noticed and people are definitely discussing your brand.

However, if you don’t see that presence or reputation being built up online through your targeted communities, it might be a signal that either your advertising efforts are not paying off or that your brand is simply not memorable enough.

In order to make your brand stand out, you should definitely consider making changes to your logo, motto and overall appearance, your social media presence and your overall advertising campaigns. Don’t forget that your online platform is an integral part of a successful brand image and you can use your website as a powerful marketing tool as well.

You can always take inspiration from your competitors and see what they are doing well and which areas can use some improvement. However, remember that your business needs to stand out and be unique and while imitation can be seens as the greatest form of flattery, you should always strive to establish your business independently on the market using your own design to elevate your brand to the next level.