Now that Winter is over and Spring has sprung, spring cleaning is on everyone’s mind (well almost everyone). You can use this time to refresh your company’s branding and/or marketing collateral too. Many use the start of Spring as a time for new beginnings in their home and in their lives. The same concept can apply to your business’s branding also. Take an unbiased view at your logo, your colors, your fonts and messaging – both tone and word verbiage. A refresh can be as simple as designing a logo tweak or as big as a total brand makeover. How will you know if the timing is right? Check out these five signs it’s time to consider a brand refresh this Spring:
1. You Can’t Recall When You Last Refreshed Your Branding
If you’ve been around for years and can’t remember ever changing up your logo, colors or messaging, it may be time to evaluate your branding. If you aren’t sure where to start, seek an outside opinion from branding experts. Have a professional audit of your website, latest marketing materials, logo and other messaging. This will help give your business an outsider’s opinion on whether or not it’s time for a change. They are impartial and unbiased. Sometimes you are too close to your brand to see what others see.
2. You’ve Never Changed It
If you think your brand is so recognizable that you can’t possibly refresh it, consider this: Even big name brands like Tim Horton’s and Shaw have undergone brand refreshes in recent years. No business is so recognizable that it can’t undergo an update. Consider auditing your branding to see if there can be any improvements made. While you shouldn’t simply change things for the sake of change, there may be small ways to improve. Consider what your logo and branding means to others not to you. Does it convey the message you intended? Another 2021 recommendation is to focus on mobile first. How does it display on the smaller screens?
3. Your Website Doesn’t Match Your Other Branding
If you’ve undergone a major change to your website but you failed to update other aspects of your brand – such as business cards, brochures, signage, invoices, etc. – it may be time for a refresh. A common mistake many businesses make is updating one part of their branding, and forgetting about consistency across the board. If your website is in the 21st century but your logo or tagline are lacking, consider updating so that all of your marketing materials, including your website, are consistent.
4. You’re Expanding or Contracting
Sometimes what you originally planned changes course. Businesses can outgrow their branding as their core vision or mission changes. Sometimes taglines or logos are too narrow (or too broad) and encompass only one core offering or product. While this may be where your business started, consider refreshing it to encompass where your business is going – not just where its at. It’s important when setting the course for your branding that you leave enough room for change.
5. Your Marketing Responses Have Plateaued
Your current marketing can say a lot about whether or not it’s time for a rebrand or refresh. Consider the responses to your most recent marketing campaigns and whether or not you’ve been effective. You can also poll your current customers to see how they feel about your branding. Ask what feelings your primary colors evoke. Ask if your tagline is easy to remember and helps drive your values or mission. The feedback you receive could be telling toward whether or not it’s time for an update. Keep in mind that each brand is different, and while your business may need a brand refresh after a couple years, another might still be going strong after the same number of years. Pay attention to the response you’re getting from your marketing materials and feedback from your website.
How Can You Tackle your Brand Refresh?
Start at the top. If you start Spring cleaning with the vacuum cleaner, you’ll later knock dust all over your floor with the duster. A top-down strategy works best, both for spring cleaning your home and whipping your brand refresh strategy into place.
- Look at your logo, colours, and fonts.
- Next look at what is most customer facing like your website, signage and sales collateral.
- Finally look inward to your transactional communications like invoices and labeling. If you are in retail, consider how a refresh to your branding impacts your product packaging.
Remember, if you opt to refresh your branding, it does not mean you have to roll it out in a single moment. If you have significant volumes of perfectly good collateral with your older brand, decide whether the branding of it will impact your future. It may be perfectly okay to exhaust this inventory prior to updating with new collateral.
Post-Press
If you haven’t touched your branding in ages, it’s definitely time for an evaluation. And if all else fails and you aren’t sure where to start, don’t be afraid to seek out branding experts for some help! Contact the team at Minuteman Press Calgary Shepard today. We Design. We Print. You Profit!