7 principles to consider when rebranding

You want to rebrand your company to fit your new direction, but you’re not a 100% sure about your decision. Perhaps you’ve decided it’s time to move in a new direction, but you’re starting to realise that a rebrand is no easy task. This isn’t just a case of replacing your logo and changing your business name. No, it’s a complete overhaul of your values and how you’ll be projecting yourself to the marketplace.

There are many principles you need to keep in mind while rebranding your company. So, what are they? Here are just some of them.

The 7 key principles 

1. Start with your Core Values

Who are you as a company? That’s the first open-ended question you should be asking yourself before you make the transition to rebrand yourself. Without the answer to this issue, your rebranding efforts won’t work nearly as well because they won’t be based on a sound basis of clarity.

2. Think about what is working and what isn’t

You’re likely remarketing because your existing brand wasn’t targeting your customers the way you wanted it to. But likely, there were aspects of your current brand that worked beautifully. Take what was working and keep it, changing the aspects that didn’t work so well.

3. Think about how you want your brand to view in 10 years

Without a long-term vision, you’ll make compromises for short term gain and then experience the resulting downfall in the years ahead. So start with the end in mind, and brand your company accordingly. How do you want your customers to view you in five years? What kind of long-term relationships do you want to build with your clients? These are some of the questions you want to ask yourself.

4. Look at your competition

There’s a reason why your competition exists; they’re obviously doing something right. Look into what successful aspects of their business you can learn from, and change accordingly. Whether it’s their lead generation systems, conversion optimisation methods, or else – learn from them, and improve on their strengths.

5. Consider the consequences

Is rebranding going to take your business forward? That likely is your premonition; otherwise, you wouldn’t have made the choice to. If your customers were very attached to your previous brand, there may be some backlash related to changing your image. So, be sure to keep the heart of what made your company work before, so that your customers can come along with you on your new journey.

6. Don’t be too flexible with your new image

When you’re making a big change like a rebranding project, it can be very easy to keep tinkering with ideas. Meaning, you’ll likely change your mind more than a few times about the colour schemes you choose, the logo, and style of content you’ll be using. Between the time you’ve decided to rebrand and crystallised your plans, make sure you give yourself enough time. Too little, and you’ll constantly be going back and forth with your design team. Too much, and you’ll never get the rebrand done.

7. Provide sneak previews of your rebrand

To avoid too much of a shock factor and the risk of possibly alienating your customers, introduce the idea of a rebrand to them early on, giving them time to adjust to the notion. Once the change has been made, be sure to announce the rebrand as something of a celebration, perhaps with a giveaway, a blog post, or just simple shares of the noteworthy news on social media.