Rebranding Your Business

Rebranding your business help you to connect with a wider audience and attract new customers. If your business’ products and services have evolved since its inception, it can also be a way to realign your brand’s identity with your business as it stands today.

Whatever your reasons for considering a rebrand, it’s a costly investment that comes with risks. Take a look at our rebranding tips below to help get you started…

Be clear on why you’re rebranding

Before you get started, take time to consider whether it’s the right time for a rebrand. Think about why you want to change your brand identity, and what it will offer your target customers if you do. Many businesses rebrand because they realise they’ve simply evolved so that their values and offering no longer align with their image. Adding new products to your offering and changes in your audiences’ expectations may well mean it’s time to think about rebranding.

However carefully you implement it, a rebrand is likely to be a significant investment, so it’s important that you’re clear on what you’re hoping it will do for the business. If a competitor undergoes a successful image overhaul, it may be tempting to follow suit and freshen your own, but that doesn’t mean it will work for you. When carried out unsuccessfully, rebranding can lose businesses years of value brand awareness and lead to negative publicity.

Decide what needs to change

Once you’ve decided to rebrand, it’s time to work out which aspects of your business’ identity need refreshing. Investigate what’s working well and what needs to change, ensuring that you pour your investment into the areas that will see the biggest returns – and that you don’t erase any areas that are still working well for you.

Whilst internal discussions are a good place to start, you’ll benefit from external opinions too. Work with test audiences from your target demographics to find out how they perceive your current brand identity and what they want from a new one.

Rebranding can mean changing anything from your company name to the logo, your tone of voice and your online and offline marketing. You may not need to completely revise all of these elements, so you’ll need to decide whether you’re going for a partial or a full rebrand. This is a good time to think about your budget and how far it’s realistically going to go. If you’re going to work with a rebranding agency, take time to shop around and get some quotes for the changes you’d like to make.

Plan your rebrand

This is the fun part. It’s time to sit down with the wider team and redefine your business goals and ethos. It’s crucial that you create a rebrand strategy that everyone can work to, as your employees and any agency staff you work with will need to be clear on exactly how you want your new brand to look. If you’re rebranding to step away from any negative events or issues with your company culture, it’s vital that you take steps to resolve these before launching the new brand.

Take things back to basics and write down your company ethos, values and goals. What do you want to represent to customers, and what do you want for the company in the long-term future? Analyse your customer data to gain a clear, up to date idea of who your customers are and what’s important to them. Once you have your customer profiles, you’ll be able to draw out the USPs you want your rebrand to highlight.

Get rebranding

Now for the actual rebranding! If you’ve decided to work with a rebranding agency, make sure you remain actively involved in the process from start to finish. Ensure that every action meets your original brief, and that the outcome is looking likely to really reflect what your business stands for. For a rebrand to be a success, it needs to align with your business and connect with your existing, and wider prospective audiences.

Incorporate time in your project timeline for a rigorous testing phase, which should enable you to gather invaluable customer feedback before you launch your new brand. Listen to what your audiences are saying, and don’t be afraid to make changes in response to their opinions. When you’re happy with your rebrand, think about how you want to launch it. This is a great opportunity to maximise on positive publicity, so consider creating a marketing strategy dedicated to pushing it out across all channels.

Business insurance with Towergate

At Towergate, our business insurance for your SME can be tailored to fit your needs. Get in touch with our experts to find out more about the best SME insurance services for your business.

This is a marketing article by Towergate Insurance.

About the author

Alison Wild BCom (Hons), MAAT, ATT, Taxation Technician is a highly respected industry professional who has been working with and advising SMEs in areas including tax, pensions, insurance and marketing for over 25 years. She is a member of the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) and Association of Tax Technicians (AAT) and also has considerable experience as a residential landlord.