All About Rebranding

Perhaps you were acquired and want to change your name to a moniker that reflects both your new management and the old one. Or maybe you had a tough period and want to emerge with a new name. Whatever the reason, sometimes entrepreneurs need to rebrand their companies. Here we’ve detailed the reasons a company may want to rebrand, and how it can be done in a way that yields the desired business result.

Reasons for Rebranding

Entrepreneurs can use rebranding to increase the overall value of their company. Rebranding can help you reinforce your position in the market, improve your brand reputation and target new customers and markets. Rebranding can be the right decision in any of the following situations.

1. If there’s a new competitor in the market and its products or services are directly competing with yours, companies may rebrand to stand out from their competitors.
2. If your company’s vision, mission, values and market have become unsustainable.
3. If you want to expand to international markets, you may need to reevaluate your brand.
4. If your company is acquired or merged with another company, rebranding can prevent confusion and build trust among your customers.
5. If your company name is generic and similar to that of other businesses.
6. Companies may rebrand if they want to expand their product offerings or target a new market or a completely new customer profile or demographic.
7. If your existing branding strategy has become outdated or you want to remove any negative association with your brand.
8. If you’re facing a large shift in target clients, business strategy or launching a new service line.
9. If there is a change in the organizational structure, goals and objectives, or your company logo has become outdated.
10. Change in business ownership, such as mergers, acquisitions or demergers, may need an immediate rebranding.
11. Shifts in the market situation or digitalization may demand that companies reinvent themselves.

Steps to Rebrand a Company in a Smart Way>

The following five steps can help entrepreneurs successfully rebrand their businesses.

Step 1: Understand the Need for Rebranding

Start with a thorough understanding of the reason behind the rebranding. Then identify whether your brand needs a partial or total rebrand. Here is the difference between the two:

Partial Rebranding

: A partial rebranding can help you retain the brand loyalty you’ve built while adjusting the visual brand identity to suit new offerings or markets. If you’re doing a partial rebranding, make sure to take the existing brand assets into account. Partial rebranding signifies that you’re adapting to the changes in the market while maintaining the same priorities. 

Full Rebranding:

 A complete identity shift or change in a company’s mission, vision and values are often necessary for situations like a change in organizational structure, product overhauls, or a merger and acquisition. 

Step 2: Reestablish Your Target Audience 

Before you rebrand, reestablish your brand’s target market and audience in the following steps:

• Research to identify what demographic you can attract with a rebrand.
• Perform due diligence on what your competition does.
• Determine how you can set yourself apart from your competitors.
• If you are attempting to target a new market, conduct independent research about your new potential clients. 
• Find out what your customers want and expect from you.

Step 3: Redefine Your Company Vision

Once you’ve established your new market and audience, redefine your company vision, mission and values as quickly as possible to ensure all your employees are making decisions with that vision in mind. Your company vision will affect everything from your website redesign to your hiring process.

As you change your company’s vision, mission and values, you must also change the way you convey the message of your company. To communicate your message effectively, involve sales and other departments from day one to understand how a rebrand would affect them and what support they will need.

Step 4: Rebuild Your Brand Identity

Develop the visual elements that will communicate your rebranding, and ensure that you implement these consistently across all your marketing materials. Here are a few common changes you may want to make as part of your rebranding strategy.

Name:

 If your name still fits after rebranding, your best course of action is to keep it. But if you want to rename your company, make sure you’ve got a plan for recovery as part of your post-rebrand strategy. 

Tagline:

 A good slogan represents your company’s mission and vision, and builds brand recognition. Unlike changing a name, changing a company slogan requires less marketing effort, but you should still consider it carefully.  

Logo: Create a new version of your logo to support your company’s vision, mission, values, and purpose after rebranding. Also, change visual elements, like artwork, typography and shapes on your website or app to support your brand message.

Step 5: Plan and Launch Your Rebranding Story

Carefully plan your launch to promote the story or reason behind the rebranding. Highlight how the changes you’ve made will improve the experience of your existing and new customers. Next, develop the marketing materials to communicate your brand messages and strengthen your rebranding This might include assets such as:

1. Training materials to communicate the changes internally.
2. Website content and visuals in your website to notify all your followers.
3. SEO (search engine optimization) terms and keywords.
4. Your listings in search directories.
5. Blog posts or news explaining the change. 
6. Social media posts reminding customers of your rebranding. 
7. Brochures and flyers.
8. Business cards, letterhead, envelopes and any other related items.
9. Email signatures and the information they include.

Next, send updated logos, descriptions and taglines to affiliated partners. Recreate ads, videos and product demos and launch email campaigns to inform your rebranding to your customers.