Is Rebranding A Smart Move? 6 Questions You Should Ask
1) Should you rebrand?
The first (and most important) question in considering a rebrand is “Should you rebrand at all?”
Rebranding can be a good idea, but it also presents a huge risk. Your brand is how your company is known by your customers, so changing your brand even in the smallest way may cause a negative reaction in your customers.
So, don’t enter into a rebrand lightly. You should only rebrand if you have a legitimate reason to do so.
Here are the times we think considering a rebrand is a good idea:
Audience Disconnect
The goal of brand is to represent who you are and make an emotional connection with your target customer, so if you’re not able to create this emotional connection with your current brand, you may want to consider a rebrand.
Not Representative
If your business model, product, company, or culture has changed dramatically, your current brand may no longer represent the core values of your organization. And if there is one thing your brand must do, it must accurately represent who you are and why you are in business. This is essential to creating meaningful and lasting relationships with your audience.
Low Quality
Perhaps when you first started your business, you did not have the money to invest in developing a high quality logo, or simply did not think it was that important. It is. Your logo is the recognizable mark of your company.
To clarify, your brand is not your logo. Your brand is the emotional connection your audience feels when interacting with your brand.
Your logo is simply the visual representation of your brand. However, this visual representation is incredibly important. So, if you have low quality brand assets, you should invest in updating your look.
Differentiation
Another reason you may want to consider a rebrand is to differentiate yourself, either from competitors or from who you used to be. If your competition has copied your brand and your business model, a rebrand could set you apart from your competition by updating your value proposition. But beware. It could lead to you falling behind your competition of your audience is not sold on your new image.
If you company has fundamentally changed directions, a rebrand can make your company’s new direction clear to your audience.
Reputation
This is probably the most compelling reason to rebrand. If your brand has a bad reputation, there may be no recovering under your existing brand. A partial or total rebrand will refresh your brand in your customer’s eyes or allow you to start completely anew with your audience under a new name.
Still convinced you need to rebrand? Ask yourself these questions as you consider what your new brand should be.
2) Why?
The next question is “Why?”
Not “why are you rebranding?”… I think we covered that (perhaps a bit too extensively) above.
But why do you do what you do? Why is your company in existence at all?
You may be wondering what in the world this has to do with branding…and the answer is everything.
Your company is the core of your brand. Your brand must authentically represent who you are…but in order to accomplish that, you must first understand who you are a business.
3) Who is your core customer?
Knowing your core customer is essential in rebranding. Defining your core customer will inform the tone of your brand messaging, your tagline, your colors and your mark.
Should they be playful? Or do they all need to instill trust and confidence? If your audience is highly creative, you’re most certainly going to end up with a new brand that is different from one that is directed towards a corporate audience.
4) What need does your company solve?
The need you are solving is important to take into consideration. If it is a sensitive topic you need to be particularly careful with your messaging when compared with something more mainstream or entertainment related.
5) What is the culture of your company?
Believe it or not, the culture of your company has a huge impact on how effective your brand is. So make sure when you rebrand, you stay true to your company culture.
Learn more about how your company culture affects your business.
6) What is the emotional connection you want to create with your customers?
As we mentioned earlier, your brand in its most simple form is the emotional connection you create with your customers. So what do you want this connection to be? What is your underlying story? Even if you don’t tell it explicitly, this story informs the reason behind your business, your motivation, and the emotional connection you will develop with your audience.
Every brand, every company has a story.
And in the strongest brands, this story comes through. Think of Tom’s shoes, Apple, and Windows. These brands accurately portray their story through their brand.
Your story, your brand is your most valuable asset. How people feel when they think of your product or your company is your main competitive advantage. Other companies can copy your product or service all day long, but they cannot copy your brand. Your brand is the largest barrier to entry you can create to keep the competition at bay. It is what will keep your loyal customers coming back again and again.
