There are many reasons why businesses rebrand themselves. They could have existed a long time and want to revamp their look, or they merged with another company, or they have a new target audience they want to appeal to. You may be itching to join in on the rebranding, but first ask yourself if this is the right marketing strategy for your business? Here are 6 more question to help decide to move forward with a rebrand or hold off for another time:
1. Why are you rebranding?
You could be in one of the situations mentioned above or there might be other reason you want to rebrand you company. Here are some common reasons companies rebrand:
- Branch Out Internationally
- New Mission or Main Goal for the Company
- Internal and external brand are not aligned
- New Owner
- Product or Services has changed
- Your target changed age or interest
- Name change
- Tech industry change (how brand in consumed)
- Scandal repair
2. What is your brand’s goal?
How do you want to reposition yourself in the market? Everyone wants to increase sales but be specific in your goal. Do you want the rebrand to focus on attracting a certain demographic to a certain product or service? For example, you are a clothing company who previous sold casual cloths for the public, but now you want to upgrade to sell luxury lounge wear for specially women. You will have to research and create goals around attracting middle-to-upper class women who enjoy lounge wear.
3. Is your current brand outdated?
This is more of a problem for companies that have been around for a long time, but small companies can also fall for outdated graphics if they don’t have an internal marketing team. Print used to be the primary source of advertising, so a lot of old logos can be geared towards fitting those standards. Also, old computer graphics and websites from the early day of internet may still be in use if you don’t have anyone maintaining your website. This can cost you clients due to them thinking you are not around anymore or worse your old website can be a security risk due to hacking of old PHP code. Updating you brand can create trust among new and existing clients. It will also indicate that you are up to date with current standards of your industry and technology.
4. What marketing strategies will help support a rebrand?
Speaking of digital and print marketing, what avenues will you new graphics appear on? Think about all the place your brand needs to be represented on. Common marketing materials are:
- Social Media Ads + Profiles
- Website
- Google Ads
- Google My Business Profile
- Business Cards
- Letterheads
- Outdoor + Indoor Signage
- Clothing
- Tradeshow Banners
- Product Packaging
- Photography or Illustrations
5. How long will a rebrand take?
Depending on how much research needs to be done rebrands take a long time. It evolves a lot of research of human behavior and interests as well as designing of different marketing materials. If you are losing salesand need change right away go ahead and rebrand. It is more of a guaranty that success will occur and leads to fast results. If you are doing good, but pivoting to a different demographic, maybe slow down and stay in the research phase a little longer before rebranding your marketing material. You may discover that a rebrand is not needed or that you could start a separate business.
6. How much should your budget be?
If you do the marketing research yourself and create graphics in a free generator it should cost, you next to nothing. However, this might not be good thing. Maintaining your brand may turn out difficult as you need more graphics to continue advertising. That also may deter you from more important task related to running your business. An effective rebrand done by a digital marketing agency starts at $30,000. If you’re a small business this may seem high, and you may get away with upgrading your logo for $2,000 and having your internal marketing team do the rest but consider saving for more advanced services in the future.
Ready to rebrand your company? Call 248.528.3600.