The Ultimate Rebranding Guide: How To Re-Emerge Stronger And Smarter

A company’s brand identity is more than just its name and logo. It represents what the company does and how it does it, and helps establish trust and credibility in the target audience.

However, if the current brand identity conveys an image that it is outdated and stale, the company can lose a lot of potential business.

In a world where trends are constantly evolving, and competition is on the rise, revisiting core values, offerings, and how the company would like to be perceived by the outside world could be just what is needed to take the business to the next level.

That is where rebranding enters the picture.

What is rebranding?

It is the process of creating a new domain name, logo, and related marketing assets to create a distinct brand identity in the minds of customers, prospects, employees, competitors, investors, and other stakeholders.

Rebranding can work wonders if the company wants to:

• Expand the scope of business (but the name of the business is limiting)
• Differentiate themselves from their competition
• Enter a new market
• Ensure a brand aesthetic that speaks to the company values

So, if your company thinks a rebrand can inject new energy into your business and complement your sales and brand strategies, here are five meaningful changes you need to make to re-emerge stronger and smarter:

How to rebrand your company?

1. Identify what makes your company special

Before you rebrand, it is necessary to revisit your business mission, vision, and values. What is it that attracts consumers to your doorstep, or what is it that is repelling them?

Does the tone, voice, and words you use for your brand match your messaging and what you deliver to your customers?

Please get to the basics and clarify what you want to shed and incorporate it into your brand values. Finding answers to such questions can help you form a solid foundation to build a new brand – no matter what your end goal is.

2. Create ideal customer personas

Once you have done research internally, look out for potential market segments that are buying from your competitors. You can gather this information via surveys, focus groups, and market research to arrive at a decision or support your new position.

The goal is to discover who is buying your products or services, and what they value or fear? Whether it is creating a name, expanding the service portfolio, or revamping the website design – you can put plans in place once you know who you are targeting.

3. Rethink your virtual brand assets

With internal and market research in hand, narrow down brand components required to connect your new image with the target audience. These could include:

a. Mission, vision and values

Rewrite them to highlight the specialty of your company and align it with your new target audience. Hulu’s mission statement clearly states what it does, why it does it, and to whom it caters.

b. Business name

The famous Shakespeare quote, “What’s in a name?” may be important in pop culture. But your company cannot take it lightly during rebranding. Changing your business name can be a huge undertaking – one that affects customer perception and organic site traffic.

However, it is necessary when you are switching industries or expanding your product offerings. For example, UrbanClap, an India-based online portal for hiring service professionals, launched its new name, UrbanCompany, early this year.

The change came when the company decided to be a horizontal gig marketplace with a global appeal, and turn the service partners, across different categories such as beauty, wellness, home repairs, into micro-entrepreneurs.

c. Slogan

If necessary, create a slogan that highlights the core benefit of your new mission, vision, and values. Make it impactful. Nike’s original tagline was “I Can,” which was forgettable. “Just Do It” was launched in the 1990s and has stuck in consumers’ minds since.

d. Tone of voice

The way you experiment with words in your brand messaging plays a huge role in separating your company from your competition and communicating with your target audience.

Create a bank of specific phrases and words that could trigger positive responses from them, and ensure your tone of voice shows your deep understanding of customer needs.

4. Redesign your visual identity

This is the most fun part of the rebranding process as it instantly increases the overall value of your company, strengthens your market position, and attracts customers who are most likely to buy your product offerings.

a. Logo

Did you know it takes only 1/10th second for a consumer to form an opinion? As a part of your rebranding process, your logo must connect both new and old customers. Let us understand this better with an example.

Remember the old logo of Uber?

In 2018, it completely changed branding and brought back the “U” in the logo, which was far more easily recognizable by drivers and customers alike.

Since at the time, Uber was aggressively expanding into food delivery services, Uber Eats, it made sense to have the emphasis back on the business name in the logo.

b. Color palette and accessibility

Colors play a huge role in customer emotions. A consistent color palette across your marketing and social media assets can raise a company’s perceived value. You don’t have to take a 180-degree turn here; consider only tweaking the current identity style and look.

If you’re based in the US, you have to particularly be mindful of keeping your website ada compliant and accessible. Contrasting colors are known to improve legibility on the site.

While all combinations might not meet the WCA guidelines, it might be worth reviewing alternate color options to make the site more accessible to disabled and non-disabled internet users.

c. Typography

Can you image Coca-Cola without its iconic font type? If anything, it has remained consistent all these years. Typography lets you develop a personality and context in your communications.

Therefore, choose a family font tree with two or three different fonts in your new brand identity. Again – you don’t have to take a U-turn and go with something completely different. Minor variations can do the trick.

5. Revamp your website and other marketing elements

Once your brand guidelines are in order, it is necessary to ensure your website is in sync with them. Update your graphic elements, logo, and favicon.

Rewrite the website copy and update the branding of your brochures, case studies, media kit, and other resources on the site.

Also, review your SEO keywords and optimize the site and social media channels accordingly. Email signatures, business cards, and footer copyright are not to be forgotten as well.

Update information for third-party technologies or directories for a seamless brand experience.

Making a checklist of all the things you have to finish before you launch your re-branded company in the market will help.

Wrapping it up

Before you start rebranding, do your homework. 

Research, brainstorm, and then execute. It is crucial your new brand image is fresh and relevant and stays so for years to come. If time and budget permits, test your rebranding assets with your customers or focus groups. Since rebranding involves a lot of effort, it is essential to get it right. So, what are you waiting for? Rebrand and reinforce your position in the market!

This article was written by Hazel Raoult, a freelance marketing writer, and works with PRmention. She has 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.