How To Rebrand Your Business And Transform Your Business Identity?

Rebranding your business includes hard work and a strategic approach to many aspects. Also, it is a risky affair that may or may not work. However, if you plan well and do the proper research, the results are destined to be desirable.

A detailed guide about how to do business rebranding is sufficient to let you know the right process.

Here is a guide to understand the relevant and important steps that help establish a new identity for your business.

What is rebranding?

Rebranding is the process of reshaping a business’s identity and replacing it with a new one. It can be anything like visual identity such as website design, website, colour, logo. Also, messaging such as mission statement, tone of voice, tagline, etc. Even strategic positioning of a business can be replaced with a new approach, such as services, products, target market, or pricing.

Two types of rebranding –

There are two major types of rebranding that you can plan for your business. These are –

• Partial rebranding – An update in the existing products or services without changing the core identity.
• Full rebranding – This is about doing a complete or major change in your brand identity, such as changing the product, direction, or target audience.

Why rebrand your business?

Rebranding becomes important for the following reasons as it is a planned move to make your business look new.

• Market repositioning – A new product launch, expansion to a new audience, or shifting your niche may need a fresh brand identity.
• Brand gets outdated – A New update in the brand is the demand of the hour. Market and trends change every now and then, and you need to update your business with the new wave.
• Reputation management – A business struggling with a bad image needs to make some changes to rebuild its reputation. A defect in the product, customer dissatisfaction, or anything can cause harm.
• Acquisitions or mergers – Joining hands with other new brands naturally changes your brand identity. Hence, you need to communicate that to the world through rebranding.
• Competitive edge – With numerous competitors, it is vital to stand out with a new identity and overshadow counterpart businesses. This helps retain existing customers and get new ones.
• Global expansion – Expanding business to new horizons, switching operations national to global operations changes a brand identity. Hence, rebranding becomes important.

How to rebrand your business? Steps to follow

With the tried and tested ways below, you can plan an effective rebranding for faster growth of your business.

• Assess your business rebranding needs

A brand audit will tell you exactly what you need in the name of rebranding. Know about current brand positioning, strengths, weaknesses, and customer perception.

• Is your brand aligning well with your brand mission and vision?
• Is your business reaching the required target audience?
• How do your customers perceive you as compared to other businesses?

• Define your rebranding needs

You can plan well for rebranding only when you are clear about the actual needs of the business. Every commercial entity wants to attain something better through brand rebuilding. It can be anything, such as:

• Expansion to a new market
• Attracting younger customers
• Creating a difference from competitors
• Increasing appeal through modernizing brand design

• Research your audience and competitors

Whether you are a lender offering business loans for bad credit on instant approval or a fashion brand, knowing your audience and competitors is important. Any kind of rebuilding brand image ultimately targets either customers or competitors. Hence, you need to do deep research on both aspects. The following questions help you find direction in this context.

• What solutions are your customers looking for?
• What triggers their emotions that influence their choice?
• How can your business look better from your competitors?

• Identify specific aspects you need to rebrand

Not everything can be included in rebranding. Some factors are always more important. Even in the case of a major or complete brand image change, you need to focus on certain aspects.

• Messaging update – Mission, vision, revised tagline, storytelling, or tone of voice.
• Visual refresh – Typography, new logo, packaging, colour scheme, or website design.
• Strategic repositioning – Customer base, product offerings, or shift brand values.

Shape new brand identity

After all the research work and knowing your needs, it is time actually to work on the implementation of plans. This usually included working on the following aspects.

• Logo – Make your logo design versatile and modern.
• Brand name (in case you are changing) – Keep it memorable, scalable, and simple.
• Tagline – Align it with your missing while keeping it impactful and short.
• Voice and tone – It can be playful or information, formal or casual, as per the preference of the audience.
• Colour palette & typography – Inspire the right emotions with suitable fonts and colours.  

Create your rebranding strategy

It is a roadmap of the budget, implementation aspects, and timelines.

• When are you planning to relaunch?
• How will you inform the employees, customers, and partners about the new changes?
• Are you planning a gradual change or a big reveal event?

Update all relevant brand points

Rebranding shows a change in every aspect of a business. Leaving anything will affect your brand image. Hence, make sure you are updating everything according to the new plans.

• Social medial profiles
• Mobile app and website design
• Marketing material such as presentations, advertisements.
• Stationery, business cards, and signage.
• Customer communications and email templates
• Product labels and packaging

Announce you rebrand

Now it is time to let the market know that your business has embraced some progressive and promising changes. Create the buzz using the following platforms.

• Announce the rebranding decision with a press release.
• Use social media to reveal the new brand look
• Make special promotion plans to introduce the new image.
• Email campaigns too are always important for big revelations.
• Show the behind-the-scenes journey of rebranding through video, etc.

Monitor your success

No need to mention, after so much hard work on rebranding, you need to monitor performance. Implementing the rebranding strategy brings many consequences. You need to know whether the outcome is desired, as sometimes rebranding backfires. Sounds ruthless, but it is realistic.

The following factors help you know whether rebranding helped in the right direct or not.

• Customer acquisition and sales growth show improvement.
• Website engagement and traffic
• Social media reach and response of people
• Customer feedback and reviews reflect
• Website traffic and engagement tell a lot.

Mistakes to avoid when you plan to rebrand

If you don’t want your rebranding plan to backfire, make sure no mistakes are made.

• Not giving attention to customer feedback – Your customers reflect the impact of your decisions right away. Avoiding it will be a big loss.
• Rebranding for wrong reasons – Don’t rebrand because you want to create a new buzz and are irritated by a competitor.
• Neglecting employees – not training or informing the staff about the new change will cause confusion and chaos among them.
• Under communicating strategy – your strategy needs to be communicated properly to everyone playing a role in implementation.
• Inconsistency – If you keep changing the message, it will confuse customers, partners, and everyone.

Conclusion

Rebranding is a long process and demands an organized approach. Following the necessary steps can make the process easy. Make a plan, follow it, and monitor the success. This will make the rebranding journey predictable. If you are planning to make a small or a big change in your business branding, the ways above will apply practically.