Rebranding for Company Growth: What is Rebranding and When is it Necessary?

May 19

Rebranding is an opportunity to revisit and revise the look and feel of your brand. It’s a chance to uplevel and refine how your company presents to its audience and how it positions itself within your industry.

This may be the year of the rebrand, but many companies still express a common concern: that rebranding jeopardizes losing the core essence of their brand. Companies wonder if they’ll lose customer loyalty, muddy their brand story, or lose the brand recognition they’ve already achieved.

These are valid concerns. But if done well, the rebranding process builds upon the foundation of your brand and helps it evolve as your business evolves.

Rebranding is the continuation of your brand story. A successful rebrand breathes fresh life into your business, and it can have a deeper impact than leaving your brand static.

Why is it important for business success and growth?

There are many reasons companies choose to rebrand. Ultimately, most companies rebrand to maintain relevance, both among their customers and within their industry. Rebranding helps businesses stay strategic and competitive. Instead of staying stuck in the past, rebranding allows for intentional future-planning. A brand should evolve alongside the company, its customers’ needs, its industry, and society as a whole.

Rebranding can elevate an existing brand, enabling it to continually excite, interest, and appeal to customers. In an age when technology advances at a rate that is difficult to track, brands have to step up and deliver. Consumers expect evolving yet consistent branding that provides a top user experience. A challenge? Yes, but it’s possible to maintain consistency of quality while also giving your brand a refresh.

“Branding has transformed into more than an identifying mark; it has begun to communicate a message – a promise about a particular product or company compared to another. Branding has adapted to the digital world and evolved to represent a broader set of experiences across all channels.”

—Francis Choo

As branding itself evolves, a company must allow for and accept rebranding as an essential element of doing business.

How do you know if your company is ready for a rebrand? Every company is different, but here are some key factors to review when considering a rebrand:

(Re)Branding Checklist

You might be ready for a rebrand if:

You don’t feel confident when handing out your business card or sharing your URL
It’s difficult for people to remember your business name, website URL, and/or your logo is hard to recognize or remember
You aren’t attracting the right customers
Your brand is complicated
- Do you offer too many disjointed services that don’t share a common thread and/or don’t align with your overall brand story?
- Is it difficult to explain what it is you do and for whom?
Your business has changed and evolved since its inception
- Are you shifting towards a different audience? Has your business grown?
- Have you changed management?
  - One of the most famous rebrands came in 1997 when Steve Jobs returned to Apple and overhauled the brand.
Repositioning in the market
- Are you gaining competitors? Has your service or product gotten lost in the shuffle? If so, a rebrand could help you get your offer in front of more people and better meet the demands of your customer audience.

What is involved with a rebrand?

Rebranding can include anything from an entire company-wide change, to a simple refresh of a logo and tagline, to revisiting your brand voice, tone, and messaging.

A professional branding agency can help your company take your brand to the next level and ensure that you do so effectively.

If you’re considering rebranding, here are some strategic moves you can take with a professional team to refresh your branding:

Update your logo and brand assets
- Nothing says “old news” like an outdated logo design or color palette. And don’t even get us started on why you should never use Papyrus! Swap outdated shades, fonts, and designs with a fresh color palette and typography while still maintaining the essence and integrity of your brand message.

Refresh your tagline
- Taglines are power-packed snippets of information that can either activate or completely turn off your potential customer. What kind of message is your tagline communicating to your customer audience? Does it make sense? Does it motivate your customer to act? Does it confuse your customer?
Revisit your audience and messaging goals
- How have your messaging goals changed since you last branded your company?
Audit your services and offerings
- Are your services no longer effective? Or are you advertising services or products you no longer provide?
Revise your SEO keywords and tags to better reflect your customer and services or products
- What kind of language are your customers using to search for what you offer? Are you taking their questions, concerns, and needs into account when you develop your SEO strategy?

Rebranding can be a fun chapter in the life of any brand. If done well, it can boost your business impact, raise your visibility, and allow you to reach more customers.

Yes, it takes time and resources, but it can definitely pay off.