Tips for A Successful Rebrand In 2022 (Part 1: Strategizing Your Rebrand)

successful rebrand

With the new year upon us, this might be the perfect time for a change in your business’s brand identity. A freshened look and feel has value for your business for various reasons. Every successful rebrand (or refresh) should be conducted with purpose, consistency and delicacy not to alienate existing customers.

Below we share tips covering strategy, design and execution of your successful rebrand in 2022. In Part 2, we cover how to successfully promote your rebrand.

First, Why Rebrand?

The “how you do a rebrand” may in part be answered by the why. If you don’t know why you’re doing it, the level of success you have will likely be impacted. You need to be 100% behind it to ensure you execute a successful rebrand. Common reasons for a rebrand could include the following:

  • Perhaps you want to target a new geography or grow your territory
  • Maybe there is a new target group your products or services could solve for
  • Perhaps you offer new line of products or services that stretch the confines of your existing branding
  • Sometimes a new website triggers need for full rebrand across all mediums
  • Maybe a merger or acquisition necessitates a brand refresh
  • Maybe its as simple as you’ve had the same look and feel for over a decade (every 5-7 years is industry standard.)
  • In some cases, rebranding can help a struggling brand move away from a bad reputation

No matter the reason, it is important to understand why you are doing it.

Overhaul vs. Tweak

Are you ripping off an old Band-Aid and redoing everything? Or do you simply need to tweak your image to reach new people or inspire a plateaued audience? A partial rebrand is perfect if you want to give your identity a facelift or modernize it a bit. If a total overhaul is what you’re after, make sure you spend enough time researching and planning to be sure you have a successful rebrand.

Big or small, these are the common elements of a rebrand. Your efforts can include any or all of these:

  • Your Logo         They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Well, a logo could be the difference between 1,000 potential customers.  It stands out front of your business representing everything you and your products stand for. Make sure you spend enough time designing your new logo. Since this opportunity is already a huge step for your business, don’t be afraid to go branch out to something new – even if it might feel less conservative.
  • New Name       Renaming is not a part of every rebranding exercise, but it is quite common to break away from the old when a purchase, acquisition or merger occurs.
  • New Marketing Strategy or Promotion          Content strategy and tactical messaging is an essential component of any successful rebrand. How you use messaging to connect with new and old customers will dictate how big your refresh/rebrand needs to be.
  • Brand Story      Telling your story – how your products and services perfectly solve the problems and needs of your customers – is what all branding should entail. Is your rebrand telling a new story that needs to be created or reframing an existing story?
  • New Website    Depending on your business model and the extent of your presence online could mean a rebrand is simply a new website. However, implementing a new look is also a good time to infuse your infrastructure with new technology and upgrades.

Caution: Rebranding Pitfalls to Avoid

Not all rebrands work the way originally intended. To ensure your successful rebranding, avoid these three common mistakes:

  1. Do not jump ahead to design. Your rebranding strategy is as important as the elements of the brand themselves. You need to strategize the various elements of your rebrand. Knowing how you going to roll it out is crucial to a successful rebrand.
  2. Having a plan to roll out a new look and getting your team on board must include a reasonable budget and allotment of time (it always costs more and takes longer than you initially think it will), research, a project timeline, goals, and realistic expectations. Will you allow the exhaustion of existing collateral to take place gradually over time, release the brand one medium at a time or will you update all collateral and mediums on the same day?
  3. Do not alienate your existing target, customers and prospects. Unless you’re completely changing your entire service/product offerings, it’s essential to keep your existing audience on board with big changes.
  4. New and bold is good but avoid confusing and/or unnecessary. At the onset, we hit home the fact you should only rebrand if there is a purpose. Stick to the purpose and make logical changes for that purpose.

Consider a Checklist for a Successful Rebrand

Your successful rebrand checklist can likely be broken into physical (print, signage, internal forms, etc.), digital (web, social, online advertising) and corporate cultural and branding itself (mission, vision, brand manifesto, job postings, etc.). Below is a (non-exhaustive) checklist to get you started:

Corporate Culture

  • Your brand values
  • Unique Selling Proposition
  • Sell lines / tag-lines
  • Brand manifesto
  • Tone of voice guidelines
  • Brand style guide 
  • Job postings

Digital assets

  • Web domain(s)
  • Social media accounts (do new handles need to be initiated?)
  • Online advertising (Google Ads, Facebook, etc.)
  • Email templates
  • SEO and metadata on web pages

Physical assets

In short, just about every touchpoint your business has with the rest of the world may need to be updated for you to achieve maximum chance of a successful rebrand.

Post-Press

A rebrand can be a tweak or a complete overhaul of your business look, feel and positioning. Exciting? Absolutely. Daunting? It doesn’t have to be. Once you’re clear on your goals for rebranding and you’ve decided on the scope of the project, it’s time to get started on making it happen. 

Need a hand in making a successful rebrand? Reach out to Minuteman Press Calgary Shepard. We can help with creative design aspects as well as developing an in-depth marketing plan to make sure your efforts pay off.