Website Preloader
Mighty Fine Logo

How to Effectively Launch a Rebrand Without Upsetting Your Audience

๎€ฃ

November 8, 2022

w

Branding

Rebranding is a significant decision for any company.

It isnโ€™t something that can be taken lightly, and it’s certainly not something you should do on a whim. There are multiple factors to consider before initiating a rebrand, and even more to consider once you decide to go through with one. The most critical thing to consider is that rebranding is far more than changing your logo or name. It’s about change on a much deeper level. 

At its core, rebranding is about reshaping the intangible feelings or perceptions people have when they think about your business. This involves changing your visual identity, strategy, awareness, and positioning. Research by McKinsey & Company shows that successful rebranding can lead to a 10โ€“20% increase in revenue.

Rebranding may be a good idea if your current branding no longer serves your company’s values or if you plan on expanding your target market by changing your product lineup. Whatever the reason for your rebrand, it’s crucial to have a strategy before making any changes. Below are some common reasons why businesses rebrand.

  1. Updating the Brand Image
  2. Company Growth and Evolution
  3. Repositioning in the Market
  4. Mergers and Acquisitions
  5. International Expansion
  6. Recovering from Negative Publicity
  7. New Vision or Leadership
  8. Legal Reasons

When properly executed, rebranding can breathe new life into a company, attract new customers, and help your business connect better with its existing customer base. 

But if the rebrand is botched at any point, it can be an absolute disaster. Or if it breaks with consistency, like the Tropicana product rebrand, which lost millions due to redesigning the recognizable iconography that represented the brand for decades.

Careful planning and implementation are key to a successful rebrand.

Careful Planning and Implementation are Key to a Successful Rebrand: Define Your Rebranding Goals

Before considering rebranding, you must understand why you’re doing it. What are your goals? What do you hope to achieve? 

For example, are you trying to reach a new audience? Are you trying to change the way your company is perceived? Or are you simply trying to refresh your image?

Being clear about your long-term goals from the outset will help you make better decisions throughout the process.

Suppose your company is looking to expand into additional markets. Rebranding can be a great way to connect with new customers who may need help understanding your (new) logo or mission statement.

Do Brand Research

Once you know why you want to rebrand, it’s time to do research to ensure that your intended target market will receive your new branding as you intended. You need to understand their needs, wants, and perceptions to recreate your brand in a way that resonates with them.

Take a good look at your proposed target market and your current brand image. What do your current and potential new customers like and dislike? What other brands do they love? And just as importantly, what other brands do they hate or distrust?

For instance, a Nielsen survey found that 59% of consumers prefer to buy new products from brands familiar to them. This highlights the importance of ensuring your new branding maintains some level of familiarity and trust. Furthermore, analyzing competitorsโ€™ branding strategies can reveal gaps in the market that your brand can exploit, ensuring a unique position.

Your research should include customer surveys, focus groups, and listening to social media, but it should also extend to your competition. See how they’ve branded themselves and what they’re doing right (and wrong), and use this information to inform your own decisions. Researching the competition will also ensure your message and image don’t overlap. You should have a distinct presence.

In summary, diligent research into both your target audience and your competition is essential for a successful rebrand. This research will provide valuable insights and guide your strategy to create a brand that not only stands out but also deeply connects with your audience.

Create a Rebranding Strategy

Once you know your goals and have done your research, it’s time to put a strategy together. What elements of your brand will need to change? What can (and should) stay the same? How are you going to communicate the changes to your brand to your current audience? Your strategy should be detailed and comprehensive, covering every aspect of the rebrand, from your logo and brand messaging to your social media presence.

According to the Harvard Business Review, 64% of consumers cite shared values as the primary reason they have a relationship with a brand. Thus, keeping core values and certain recognizable elements intact can help retain customer loyalty during the transition.

Inform Your Customers

Your customers should be the first to know about your rebrand โ€” after all, they’re the ones who are going to be most affected by it. So make sure you let them know what’s happening and why.

The next step is to outline the rebranding’s or redesign’s rationale, advantages, and any further changes to strategy. Explain the changes and their reasoning to them.

It is vital to highlight how the rebrand will affect the customer to ensure that they are not confused. Include details like product updates, price changes, feature updates, domain redirection, and anything the client needs to do on their end, if applicable.

Brand Identity

Your Identity is one of the most critical aspects of your brand. It’s often the first thing people will see, so it needs to make a good impression and articulate who you are visually. Effective branding helps distinguish a product or company from its competitors and creates a strong customer connection. Your brand is the perception people have of your business or organization. Overall, branding is essential for building trust, loyalty, and recognition among consumers and establishing a solid presence in the market.

One-Minute Video on Branding and Identity

When redesigning your logo, keep things simple. Complex logos are hard to remember and may need to be simplified for your customers. Be deliberate with your color and font selections, and ensure the design is easy to understand. The design should convey the mission and culture of the company.

Have you ever seen a logo for a company and wondered, what the heck do they do because the logo has nothing to do with the identity of the business?

Along with your new logo, your company should establish new branding guidelines in order to ensure consistency across all of your future marketing endeavors. Anyone using your logo can use your branding guidelines to ensure they use it properly. This document has all the dos and don’ts of how people can use your logo.

We frequently encounter stretched logos or out-of-brand colors in e-commerce or affiliate marketing advertisements. This should NEVER happen. Stay on-brand, and make sure you have guidelines in place.

Changing Your Business Name

Changing your business name is a huge decision that requires extensive planning and execution. If you do, you must update everything on your marketing materials, website, and social media accounts. This can not be overthought. Your name is everywhere.

Consider why you are changing your name. Is it really necessary? Are you making this decision on your own, or have you consulted with your peers to get their opinion?

There are now more opportunities to get a URL that matches your name change. Registrars like Godaddy now incorporate AI to provide options if you cannot find an exact match. It’s great to have an exact match, but it’s not essential.

Additionally, avoid using generic, exact-match terms with the expectation of improved SEO rankings. For example, if youโ€™re a plumber in New York, using a domain like NYplumber.com will no longer guarantee better SEO performanceโ€”those strategies are outdated. Focus instead on creating a unique and memorable domain name that reflects your brandโ€™s identity and values.

This process can be costly and time-consuming, so confirm that you’re sure before making this change. You must update your brand name change across the web. This can be done manually but will require time and effort. You can use a service like BrightLocal to update your name change through data aggregators on the web. You can also update all the citation sites with all the rebrand changes. It’s not free and not cost-prohibited.

Changing Your Domain Name Could Be Disastrous For SEO Ranking

Your initial SEO efforts can be undone instantly unless you create a strategy that adheres to Google’s Guidelines on how to move a site. Domain history significantly impacts how Google ranks your website and content. If you’ve had the same domain for many years, Google sees that as a trust signal. Don’t lose your SEO juice!

Here are two options for changing your URL without disastrous results:

โ€ข Option 1: This can be a temporary solution or permanent, depending on your goal. Keep the site’s old URL and create a new one that redirects to the current one. You can use the latest Domain Name on all your marketing collateral while continuing to use the old Domain.

โ€ข Option 2: If you aren’t familiar with the process, you can employ an SEO specialist to transfer your Domain. Here are the cliff notes: This can be done by creating a duplicate website with your new Domainโ€”you will mirror the two websites. You will then create 301 redirects on your web pages to point to the new Doamian’s web pages. You must also tell Google you wish to move one domain property to another through Google Search Console. This is the short end of it, but here’s Google’s link to perform this function.

It’s best to hire an SEO specialist if you are scratching your head while reading this second option – We can’t stress this enough.

Instructions on changing to a new URL. Graph showing 301 redirects.

Brand Messaging

Sometimes brand messaging gets overlooked when companies go through a rebrand. The messaging is just as important as the identity. You should have a copywriter develop a brand story and voice to accompany your new identity.

A short one-minute-video on Copywriting and Brand Messaging

You should consider a variety of taglines and headlines that communicate your company’s mission or values. It should be memorable and easy to understand.

Let your new brand image shine through in your headlines and catchphrases. It ought to differentiate you from the competition while also appealing to your target audience. In addition to being brief, it should effectively summarize your company’s mission and values.

It is recommended that you compile a list of slogans and headlines that represent your organization’s various facets. All of your communications and marketing efforts can benefit from utilizing your brand’s messaging.

Update Your Website Copy

Your website is often the initial point of contact between you and your customers. It must be up-to-date with your new branding, mission statement, and products or services.

Make sure your website is responsive and easy to navigate. Use clear and concise language, and avoid using complex terminology.

We can’t stress enough the importance of a website redesign. It advocates for your business 24/7 and should make an excellent first impression. There are a lot of unique designs on the web. Don’t look like the local hometown player. You should always strive for a design that allows you to play on a national stage.

Launching Your New Brand

Once youโ€™ve strategized and updated your companyโ€™s inner workings, it is now time to launch your new brand to the world. Start by updating your social media accounts and website. Send a press release announcing your rebrand, and ensure all your marketing materials reflect your new brand.

After you’ve launched your new brand, it’s essential to evaluate the results. Are your goals being met? Are customers responding positively to your new branding?

Monitor your social media channels and website traffic, and remember to ask your customers for their feedback.

Train Your Employees

Employees are the face of your business, and theyโ€™ll need to be trained on your new branding to represent it accurately to your customers.

Please give them the tools they need to ensure they understand your new mission statement and values and are ready to answer customer questions about your rebrand. Motion graphics animation is an excellent media to distribute throughout your organization to fully communicate what the new brand is and why your organization decided to go through the process.

We created a video for a client that does exactly this. They have locations throughout the world so they wanted an easy way to communicate their new brand values.

Market and Develop New Ads

The next step in the rebranding process is developing new advertisements that reflect your unique brand. Your ads should be creative and attention-grabbing, accurately reflecting your new brand and values and explicitly directed at your target market.

If you follow this plan, you’ll be well on your way to launching a successful rebrand. Remember to take your time, research, and stay true to your brand.

Make sure your marketing plan will get the word out there and most importantly, give people a reason to care. Tell them what’s new and why it should matter to them.

Be Patient

Successful rebranding takes time. It can take months to see the full impact of your new branding.

Accepting that a transition period is necessary will help you stay focused and motivated during the rebranding process, so be patient and keep working on getting your brand out there.

Be Prepared for Brand Feedback

No matter how significant your rebrand is, not everyone will fall head over heels for it. There will always be people who are resistant to change, but that’s okay.

The important thing is to be prepared for negative feedback and be ready to address those concerns. Have a strategy in place for how you’re going to handle adverse reactions while being prepared to listen to constructive criticism.

Let The Brand Evolve

Your rebrand can be something other than perfect on day one. It shouldn’t be. The best brands are constantly evolving and changing, so don’t be afraid to experiment and make adjustments as you go.

Your goal is to create a flexible, adaptable brand that can grow and change with your company.

Launching a successful rebrand is no easy feat, but you can do it with proper and careful planning and execution. Remember to define your goals, research, create a strategy, market your rebrand, inform your customers, and be prepared for feedback. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to let it evolve.

A Rebrand Is a Major Decision

A rebrand can be a great way to revitalize your image and connect with a new audience. However, it’s important to remember that not everyone will be happy with the change. Make sure you have a strong marketing strategy to inform your customers of the changes and make the transition as smooth as possible.

Mighty Fine is a digital ad agency with the expertise required to execute your rebrand. Contact this talented team today to take your company to the next level.  

It isnโ€™t something that can be taken lightly, and it's certainly not something you should do on a whim. There are multiple factors to consider before initiating a rebrand, and even more to consider once you decide to go through with one. The most critical thing to consider is that rebranding is far more than changing your logo or name. It's about change on a much deeper level. 

Design Insights,
Delivered Fresh.

Discover how strategic graphic design can elevate your brand. Subscribe for actionable tips and insights crafted for business owners looking to make a powerful visual impact.

Author

Sarah Harris, a professional writer with nearly two decades of experience in digital marketing and B2B tech, is known for infusing humor into her copy to make brands more approachable. She graduated from Emerson College and lives in Agoura Hills, California, with her husband and two children.

Related Articles:

Experiential Marketing 101: How To Engage Customers

Experiential Marketing 101: How To Engage Customers

Experiential marketing offers an alternative marketing method that cultivates emotional connections and drives deeper customer engagement. If weโ€™re being honest, there's a lot of marketing noise out there. With ads spanning anywhere from outside your door to your TV...

Graphic Designers: The Ultimate Brand Heroes

Graphic Designers: The Ultimate Brand Heroes

Like superheroes serving for good, graphic designers exist to support and champion the brands they design for. This article was updated July 11, 2024 My passion for graphic design was unexpected. While pursuing accounting at Northeastern University, I was simply...

Website Design

We design websites that delight.

Letโ€™s start a conversation and take the journey to take your website to the next level. Weโ€™re positive youโ€™ll like where we go.

Don't miss out on these mighty fine insights!

Discover how strategic graphic design can elevate your brand. Subscribe for actionable tips and insights crafted for business owners looking to make a powerful visual impact.