Countless companies are launching each day, making it important to focus on the brand’s identity to keep everything fresh and updated.
A strong company should consider its brand image carefully, being sure to update as needed. You could focus on a refresh or do a complete rebranding of your logo, iconography, color palette, and identity.
Typically, it’s wise to hire a professional to create a business rebranding strategy, and they will complete all the steps for you. However, you should be aware of the cost-effective ways you can tackle this process, as well.
What Does Rebranding Mean?
Rebranding a business often focuses on a full overhaul of the company’s identity, which includes the brand logo, taglines, imagery, icons, color palettes, typography, and all visual assets.
There’s also a brand refresh, which offers a lighter update of the overall style, tone, voice, typography, and logo.
Companies often use a rebrand as a marketing strategy to boost brand awareness, modernize things, improve sentiment, address problems, streamline/expand services, merge multiple products, or appeal to a new target audience.
Why You Need a Rebranding Strategy
Consumers are fickle. Even if you have a strong brand, you’ll eventually have to adapt to the customer’s updated preferences and interests. A rebranding is a strategic way to enter the process and can help you avoid issues over time.
Rebranding can also help you correct problems after making mistakes. This will ensure you align with the company’s mission and position to re-engage with existing customers or draw in new audiences.
Reasons to Consider Rebranding
You’ve learned what a rebrand is, but when should you consider one? Here are the main reasons:
Poor Reception of the Brand
Sometimes, it’s hard to succeed in your niche. Whether you have a slow decline in performance or recently launched something new, it’s crucial to find that competitive advantage through brand positioning so that you don’t lose customers.
Likewise, you may have encountered some negative brand recognition, such as through a mistake. These things happen, and a rebrand can change the way people think about your company.
Outdated Image
The biggest reason for a rebrand is that you feel your image is outdated. It’s wise to perform some tests to determine if that’s true, which can help you learn if the change will resonate well with the target audience.
Mergers/Acquisitions
Ownership changes can often create misalignment between the new owners and the previous brand. You want to bring both together to retain any existing customers while capturing a separate audience.
Most customers have brand loyalty and may need to be reminded that you’re still there. Even if the company logo or packaging design has changed, you are basically the same.
Business Pivot or Evolution
Sales channels, categories, and businesses will change. Often, your branding requires an update to stay relevant to the existing customer base. A pivot strategy can help with continuous growth.
New Audience Targeting
Companies often change their images in similar or separate categories to attract new customers. Rebranding allows you to consider that target audience while maintaining the same appeal for existing fans.
Damage Control
Sometimes, you might need to modify your company’s identity to ensure brand loyalty, whether because of a changing social climate or a specific decision. It’s wise to work with an experienced rebranding agency because it has the expertise to reduce stress so that you can focus on dealing with the problem.
Brand Messaging Clarification
Whenever companies scale, more teams and individuals publish their own content, so this can lead to a disjointed message. Rebranding declutters your existing brand assets, offering a chance to clean up or establish consistency.
Ways to Update Your Brand – Strategy Is Key
Here are a few cost-effective strategies to help with your rebranding efforts:
1. Create a New Visual Identity With Strict Brand Guidelines
The visual brand includes the logo, color palette, iconography, imagery, and more. One of the best rebranding strategies is to update the aesthetics while maintaining the company’s essence.
It’s possible to come up with an entirely new brand identity, though you may not have to. For example, Apple initially used an image of Isaac Newton and switched to the iconic fruit we know today.
You’ll want to create a style guide (brand guidelines) that can easily be distributed to all stakeholders. Likewise, everyone should be on the same page. This will also help you generate marketing materials to use throughout the years (or until the next rebrand).
2. Merge Multiple Products/Services Into One Brand Identity
If you offer various services, it’s important to determine if they’re easily identified as being part of your current brand. Perhaps you recently acquired or merged with another company and must create a new logo to enjoy a more cohesive identity.
When that is the case, a rebrand will help you focus on your company’s vision. It’s easier to portray to everyone that both brands are now working as a unit.
Typically, a successful rebrand will incorporate brand elements from both companies, creating consistency.
3. Pivot Your Service/Product Offerings
Many times, a company starts offering one service and expands to others. Alternatively, you may have provided many products and now specialize in one particular thing.
4. Launch a New Side of the Business
There are always opportunities to branch out into a new market. One product could be doing extremely well, or you may now have a vertical that’s grown and needs its own team and resources.
Overall, if you’ve created a consistent brand, people will flock to that new product or service without much fuss. However, it’s still important to consider a rebrand launch so that they know those items now exist.
5. Tell a Brand Story
People respond well to storytelling, so a brand story can boost your company’s image and authenticity, improving trust and public perception.
Why Use Professional Business Branding Services
The rebranding process can be quite confusing, especially if you’re focused on the business side of things. Luckily, PGN Agency can help. We are the go-to solution for such situations and will work toward brand consistency. Contact us to get started now!