As your business grows, you may find that it has changed. Whether it be due to the marketplaces it inhabits or the audience it reaches, your business may feel different compared to the business vision you started with. Should you rebrand?
Rebranding your business
Rebranding your business is the process of changing your company’s image. As people, we change our images overtime. Our clothing style may change with what’s popular, and our interests evolve as we experience new things. The same applies to our businesses. Rebranding your business involves changing various elements such as your company name, logo, design, messaging, and so forth.
Just as we change as people, it’s normal for your company to change overtime and need a partial or complete rebranding. However, rebranding is a big deal and needs to be approached with careful planning. Without a proper plan, your business can be negatively impacted by rebranding, so it’s important to be sure that your business will benefit from an image change.
When should I consider rebranding?
Since rebranding has risks, it’s important to be sure that you are starting the rebranding journey for the right reasons. Some signs that you should consider partial or complete rebranding are:
1. Your business focus or strategy has changed
When you first started your business, you had a vision in mind. Your products, services, and mission were the founding drivers of your business, but over time, those founding goals may not reflect where your business stands now. Your company may have grown to include totally different products or services while others have faded out. Your overall mission statement may have evolved as your once small audience grew to include a variety of customer types. In a moment like this, where your business has outgrown its original focus and strategy, rebranding is an effective solution to make it easy for old and new customers to understand what your business is for.
2. Your target audience has shifted
Audiences change whether we like it or not. The customers your business attracted in the beginning may be very different or much broader today. The ways they find you may have changed. Your company may also have grown to new marketplaces and locations, each requiring different ways of talking to different groups of customers. Rebranding your messaging, slogans, call for actions, voice and so forth to better communicate with your evolving audience is important to making it easy for new customers to find your business and feel at home with it.
3. Your branding is outdated
With eCommerce businesses especially, technology is completely different than it was 20 years ago! Designing a website comes with so many more options now, allowing us to make beautiful, sleek online shops. Visual art has evolved with time as well. The kinds of logos that resonate with audiences today are different than others, especially when you consider that your logos are not only on your site, but also on social media, mobile apps, and so forth. Visually rebranding to make your site and brand visually distinct and attractive to your audience is important to standing out, especially in the world of eCommerce.
4. Your marketplace has evolved
The products and services you originally started with may have been niche and in demand at the time, but are they still today? New competitors and technological advancements can cause your current branding to no longer stand out. Updating your catalog of products and services to evolve with improved solutions is necessary to stay current even if it requires changes to your branding. Keeping an eye out for business opportunities and pitfalls in your marketplace that you can take advantage of or avoid are also worthwhile rebranding opportunities.
5. Your customers desire change
When you think about customer feedback that you have received, does anything stand out? Is there something that your customers either keep complaining about or keep asking for that requires a rebrand for your company? Your customer words are important, so encouraging customer feedback and analyzing it can help you find signs that your brand may need tweaked or updated.
Want to learn more?
Rebranding isn’t easy, but it can be a necessary step in some cases. Here at BCSE, we are facing the struggles of rebranding right now! Listen to our podcast where we share our own questions and journey surrounding rebranding, specifically when it comes to changing your company name!
