While making the decision to rebrand the image of your company is not an easy choice, the good news is that the process is actually easier than you might think.
A brand identity is made up of what your brand says, what your values are, how you communicate your product or service, and even what you want people to feel when they think about your business or company. Effective branding can give a business the power to completely dominate an industry or sector with as much as one simple logo, much like we’ve seen with key players such as Apple or Nike.
However, nothing lasts forever, and sometimes that does include branding. In a rapidly changing economic landscape, sometimes a rebrand is required when the competition has evolved, and your business simply hasn’t. For others, a rebrand may be necessary if their business offerings or direction have changed, but the process can also be forced on a business in the event of a trademark ruling or a public relations crisis.
Ideally, a business rebrand could simply be required if a company’s existing offerings simply aren’t leaving an impression. Either way, corporate rebranding is actually not as complex as most people think, and can be actioned in as little as six simple steps.
A Beginner’s Guide To Business Rebranding
As an example of effective rebranding, all we need to do is look to global accommodation tech giant, Airbnb. In essence, the company’s founders wanted Airbnb to be much more than just an alternative to a hotel, but the problem was that the brand wasn’t doing enough to reflect this.
When the new logo design was unveiled in 2014, the company dubbed it the ‘Belo’, saying that the iconic pink rings similar to the infinity symbol represented the universal symbol of belonging. The company also introduced new typography, photography, and colour schemes into its apps, websites, and other relevant areas, with the new rebrand taking home several gongs for a number of prestigious international design awards.
While a rebrand may not be able to catapult the average business to the level of Airbnb, it’s a classic example of when the practice may be necessary to elevate a business, or to reflect rapid growth that it may have already experienced. If you’re a business owner and this resonates with you, embarking your own business rebrand can be done in just six simple steps.
Conduct A Brand Audit – To determine whether a business rebrand is the right choice for your enterprise, the first step is to conduct a brand audit. To measure public perception through data, a brand audit is a process that examines areas where your company branding is doing well, where you could potentially improve, and where you’re currently sitting in the market.
Devise A Strategy – If you’ve completed a brand audit and have decided that a rebrand is required, then the next step is to formulate a vision for the future. Base new colours, fonts and themes around the ethics of your brand, its personality, and your unique selling points – after all, your branding needs to truly reflect both who you are, and who you want to be.
Make A Vision Board – A brand vision board reveals the words, knowledge, and mission that drives your brand: your organisation’s vision for what impact your brand makes on the world. If you’re working with a marketing agency, they will compile this visual package together for you to tie all the new branding components together.
Create The Visuals – The graphics are the key component of any business rebrand, and it’s at this stage that you need to implement these far reaching changes. From your website, social media content, video intro and outros, print materials, your physical office or business location and even your business cards, this is a big endeavour that shouldn’t be taken on lightly.
Start Sharing – Keep in mind that it takes time to build a brand, so don’t feel the need to buckle within the first few months if you’re not getting the kind of feedback you hoped for. Changing a brand needs to be intentional, as it can also cause a great deal of harm if mishandled. In turn, consider giving your existing customers the heads up via social media or an EDM campaign.
Keep Building Your Brand – Above all, remember that the most successful business rebrands have a community of loyal customers to back them up. Investing in a new set of graphics doesn’t mean that you can take the eye off the ball when it comes to offering top notch products, services and customer experiences, as these are the bread and butter of who you are.
As branding is often closely linked to content marketing, knowing what to do next after a rebrand is often where business owners can come unstuck. If you lack the time, energy or experience to successfully harness content marketing for brand development, the good news is that there’s never been a better time to consider outsourcing this task to the professionals – but where do you find them?
The Key To Good Branding Is Great Content
Producing quality, consistent and on brand content takes time, effort, experience and resources, and it’s for this reason that content marketing often falls to the wayside for busy business owners. However, avoiding these responsibilities altogether may actually be doing your brand a disservice.
Here at Content Hive, producing top quality digital content is exactly what we do best. We have itemised a list of digital content services, and allocated credits next to each of these. This means that each month, you can use your credits with us to produce digital content such as blog articles, social media posts, videos and even animated Instagram stories. By using this model, we believe that it enables us to produce high quality content with faster delivery times.
If you aren’t quite sure where to start on your digital marketing journey and would like to speak to a professional, why not book in a free discovery call with us at Content Hive today to discuss how we can get your brand buzzing online.
