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Is It Time To Rebrand? Here’s How to Tell
We share our thoughts and experiences to help you think about the important decision to rebrand.
In a previous article, we provided a comprehensive guide on crafting a brand identity. In it, we discussed what makes a great brand and how to go about crafting one. We said that a strong brand can and should become one of your core assets as a business owner. It should make you proud, it should make you want to show it to the world and tell your story. If that is not the case, however, if you doubt your brand, if you are hesitant to give out business cards or tell clients of your website, it might be time for reflection.
Nothing lasts forever, especially in the dynamic world we live in today. What might have worked a few years ago might not be relevant today and that is more than ok. In fact, as a business owner, you should embrace and welcome the challenge of rebranding as an opportunity to grow, to reach new clients and delight existing ones, to try something new, to redefine your business, and perhaps to look for a fresh start.
We as an experienced brand and web agency have gone through several rebranding cycles ourselves and have helped our clients do the same. In this article, we want to share our thoughts and experiences from years of working with personal and client projects, in order to help you think about the important decision to rebrand.
<Left Aligned>Listen To Yourself<Left Aligned>
There are many sources of information to consider when you’re evaluating the strength of your brand. An entire industry exists for the purpose of measuring and tracking brand performance. Of course, you should examine all available data and should look for objective measurements of brand strength instead of relying solely on subjective judgement.
This is the place, however, where we would like to turn the argument around and tell you to first listen to yourself. Examine your own behavior towards the brand. Are you proud of it? Do you want to show it to the world and tell everyone about it? If not, this is a sure sign that something has to change. If you doubt your brand, you will, perhaps unconsciously, sabotage your own efforts to promote it. For example, you will be hesitant to give out business cards because you do not like how they look. You will avoid linking your social media accounts across the web because you worry what clients might think if they visited them.
There is nothing wrong with feeling this way. Instead, think of it as free feedback from an audience of 1 – an audience that includes your brand’s most important stakeholder – you! Before you begin to think about what your client wants to see, we want to suggest that you should first think about what will make you proud and then try to define it as precisely as possible.
For example, what business cards will be a joy to give out to clients? Do they have the usual shape and dimensions, are they square, are they perhaps foldable? What material are they made of? Is it cardboard, metal, plastic, perhaps something else? Something unique? How thick are they? Are their edges square or round? Do they contain a QR code or not? Do you want your high-resolution picture on them or not? Perhaps just your name? In this way, picture yourself giving out your perfect business cards. Imagine them sitting on your clients’ desks and in their wallets. See how you feel.
Our advice is to then hire an experienced designer or agency to help bring your vision to life. If you decide to work with us on your next project, we will be delighted to help!
<Left Aligned>Examine Every Aspect of Your Brand<Left Aligned>
The same advice that goes for your business cards, as an example, can be extended to every part of your visual brand. Think of every aspect of your brand identity and every piece of marketing material, every way your customer interacts with your business. You don’t need to overcomplicate it, just try to label areas for improvement, try to think about how you would like them to look, and be honest with yourself.
For example, if your social media accounts are undeveloped and have become a source of insecurity instead of pride, our advice would be to acknowledge it. This will give you the clarity to decide whether to let them go, stop promoting them for now and remove them from your marketing materials, or to recognize the needed investment, devise an action plan, and give the go-ahead. You might decide to hire a professional designer to create beautiful social media templates for you. This can make your brand consistent across social media and elevate it to a new level.
Similarly, if you find yourself hiding your own site, not sharing it and not promoting it, you might need to consider shutting it down altogether or building it entirely from scratch. The worst option, in our opinion, is to maintain a website that you’re secretly embarrassed of. It not only continues to accrue maintenance costs, but also fails to provide value to your business. Trust us, we’ve been there.
On the flip-side, building and maintain a website for your business should feel like an adventure, it should be exhilarating and exciting. This is what will truly motivate you to put in the hard work and resources to turn it into a valuable asset.
<Left Aligned>View Your Website As An Ongoing Project<Left Aligned>
Let’s now take a look at your website as a key element of your branding strategy. In a previous article, we talked about what a custom Webflow site can do for your business. In it, we spoke from our own experience.
We witnessed first hand what it means to have a website that doesn’t deliver any value, which is a chore to maintain and which ultimately feels constrictive. In a previous venture, as many other starting businesses do, we initially used a Wordpress template for our website. Also, as is often the case, we did not have the necessary skills to develop and maintain it ourselves. We wanted to keep costs as low as possible and viewed the website as somewhat of a necessary evil – you cannot go without it, it’s simply a must, but it could help people find you.
Unsurprisingly, the website quickly became a drag, it stopped working properly, bugs popped up left and right. Within a year it looked outdated. Competitors had moved on, armed with slick responsive sites that looked good. Making content for it was a chore. Making it look on brand and as planned was nearly impossible and was always a compromise, the template was simply too restrictive. We could never make it look exactly as we wanted, which meant it could never feel truly ours. We were never really proud of it.
Ironically, recognizing this is what ultimately set us on the path of helping other businesses deal with exactly the same problem. Building and maintaining a website doesn’t need to be like this. In fact, it should feel like tending to a garden. Creating content for it should be a joy or, at the very least, it should be smooth and easy. You should feel motivated to gradually expand it and develop it, to add new functionality and neat little details that show your clients that you care. A nice little touch here, a nice little touch there and gradually your clients begin to perceive that you know what you’re doing, and you love doing it. This is what we believe will provide the most value to you and your business.
Once again, if you decide to work with us on your next web project, we will be happy to help your business grow!
<Left Aligned>The Changing Nature of Your Brand<Left Aligned>
We believe that great brands are those that continue to evolve long after their initial creation. A main potential reason why you might doubt the relevance of your brand is that your business has changed, and it has fallen behind. This is also something that has happened to us and we believe it is completely natural. We all change as business owners and as people. Our values change, our goals change. The market exerts pressures on us, the demand for our products changes, our customer base changes, we often need to adapt our offering to the latest trends.
At some point we may look back to find that our current business has nothing to do with the one we originally envisioned, and that is perfectly natural. Our brand identity, however, needs to take these changes into account. If it fails to do so, there is the danger that if the divide becomes too great, your clients will begin to see it as inappropriate. They will not understand its message, they will fail to see the connection between it and your business. They will question your choices of brand name, colors, logo, typography, etc. To prevent this, you should regularly examine your brand to see how far it has drifted from your business. If the difference is too great, you should consider a rebrand.
<Left Aligned>Keeping Up With The competition<Left Aligned>
One of the key issues to consider, in order to ensure that your brand stays relevant is to keep track of how the competitive landscape of your business changes over time. As your competitors evolve, as they innovate and develop, their messaging may change as well. You should follow what your peers and market leaders are doing, not to copy them but to keep them as a reference point for your own branding. It could be that the market you are in is undergoing a structural shift. Attitudes might be changing, the needs and wants of customers, their values, what they look for in a brand. Suddenly you might find yourself in a situation where your previously supportive customers find your messaging out of place, inappropriate or even insulting. The danger exists that if you continue to present yourself in the old way you are used to and fail to meet the changing requirements of your customers, you might fall behind into irrelevancy.
That does not mean, we believe, to suddenly change and do things you believe are contrary to what your brand represents or things you would never support, but rather to keep an open eye, to reflect on the ever-changing role your brand plays in your clients’ lives. You might just find a way to express your brand’s values in a way that adapts to the times while keeping in touch with your original vision and mission. For example, you may place an emphasis on the enduring legacy of your brand, how traditional it is and how it has stood the test of time, but you can do this in a way that attracts a modern audience.
<Left Aligned>Conclusion<Left Aligned>
As we have shown in this article, a brand faces pressures to constantly adapt and evolve to stay relevant and provide value to you and your clients. These pressures come from the changing landscape of your market, your target audience, and you as a business owner. We believe that change should be embraced as an opportunity to continuously develop a brand, to try new things and grow. This can be achieved by regularly revisiting the brand to check if it still accurately reflects the nature of to the business as it exists today.
Adding to that, we believe that it is not only important to keep your clients’ needs in mind when considering a rebrand, but also what you want your brand to be. Above all, you should be happy with and proud of your brand, and you should display it without reservation.
If you choose to work with us on your next branding project, we will be happy to bring your vision to life!
Get in touch today!
