Rebranding Your Business – a 10 Step Guide (Guest Blog)
Re-branding your business can be a stressful process.
It may be the case that you’re re-branding your business due to a necessity like a trademark issue, which forces you to reconsider your branding. Or, you may have found that your current branding no longer encompasses the future vision of your business or the scope of your product offerings.
Either way, you need to make sure that your re-branding process is beneficial for your company and contributes positively to future growth.
Here’s a 10-step guide to re-branding your business in an optimal way:
1. Ask yourself the difficult questions.
Before you begin re-branding your business, you need to first ponder whether a re-brand is truly necessary, or if there is another solution to the problem your business is facing.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the problem I’m facing due to my products not solving a large enough need in the marketplace?
- Do I need to focus my time on improving my product or service instead of re-branding?
- Do I need to start a new company with a new product or service instead of re-branding?
- Is the lack of awareness of my brand the problem? Do I need to increase marketing efforts or ramp up advertising spend instead of re-branding?
Note: If you need to re-brand due to trademark issues, then the above questions are not relevant, as you are forced to re-brand your business either way.
If you still feel the need to re-brand your business after asking yourself the difficult questions, continue on to Step 2.
2. Develop your foundational branding (new business name, tagline and available domain name)
It’s time to start your re-branding process – and it begins with a new business brand name. I would recommend a few options here:
- Develop the business name yourself, taking assistance from a publicly available business name generator
- Host a contest for your business brand name
- Hire an individual freelancer from marketplaces like Elance or oDesk or develop your business name
Before approving your new business name, make sure not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Double-check both the U.S. and Canadian trademark databases to avoid any future trademark infringement claims.
3. Finalize your new logo and brand design identity
Now that you’ve got your foundational branding finalized, it’s time to move on visual brand design. This all starts with the logo. I would recommend the following options:
- Develop the logo yourself (only if you have expertise in graphic design and branding)
- Run a design contest for your logo
- Hire an individual freelancer designer from marketplaces like Elance or oDesk
- Hire a professional logo design company
Regardless of the path you choose, you should be working closely with your logo designer when developing your new logo. This is because your logo will set the new brand’s design style, colours, and font, setting the stage for your new brand design identity.
Have your logo designer then create a brand identity document moving forward. The brand identity document should contain which fonts, colours, and design style your brand should and is allowed to use.
4. Once you have your business name, logo, and brand identity locked and finalized, it’s time to begin your new website development.
Engage your web designer to begin developing your new company website.
The design style of your website should stay within the boundaries of your brand identity. This means you should only use the fonts, colours and design style that your brand identity document allows, in order to maintain a fluid brand consistency across all your branding and marketing materials.
It’s important to make sure your web designer provides a hard deadline for the completion of your website – this is especially important for your new brand launch planning purposes.
5. Schedule your launch date
Now that your website has begun development, and your web designer has provided you with a hard deadline for completion, it’s safe to schedule the launch date of your new company brand.
You should set your launch date approximately 7-14 days after the deadline your web developers gave you for website completion, as there will usually be delays or issues that need to be resolved with your website.
6. Notify your professional network about the impending brand launch
It’s time to put your marketing boots on and begin to engage your professional network. This includes emails to customers, blog subscribers, vendors and business affiliates, informing them about your pending company name change and brand launch.
It is extremely important to be transparent in your communications with your network about why you are re-branding, and how your new company brand will benefit them. Then, provide a clear launch date of your new brand and hint at what they can expect.
Remember what I said earlier about turning your re-branding process into a positive business experience – you should take this opportunity to further engage your business network and promote your company, including plugs on future business plans, products and services.
7. Develop a blog post on your company blog about the impending brand launch
Write and share a detailed post on your company’s blog about the pending re-brand, including the new name you’ve decided upon. Include the same details you included in your email to your business network to stir up excitement and anticipation.
8. Issue a press release
It’s important at this stage to dive into your Rolodex and determine whether you have any journalists, bloggers or influencers in your network that may be interested in covering your re-brand.
Send them a personalized email with a press release containing details of your re-launch, including the launch date and other exciting details of new products or services.
Consider issuing a press release via a press release distribution service if you don’t have any bloggers, writers or journalists in your immediate network. Include detailed contact information on the bottom of the press release in case a journalist wants to pick up the story.
9. Launch your new brand!
Send an email to your business network one day before your re-launch date, to build excitement and anticipation.
Then, launch your new company website containing your new brand name, tagline and logo on the same launch date you scheduled, and notified your business network about.
Develop a company blog post on your new website containing details on the new brand launch.
Send another email to your business network confirming the brand launch, and provide a link to your blog post on your new company website which contains the details.
It’s especially important to distribute an additional press release, slightly touching upon and mentioning your old brand, as well as detailing your new brand and providing a link to your new brand website.
It’s possible that existing customers may be searching for your company under your old brand name – by issuing a press release, your covering your tracks. Existing customers will likely come across the press release when searching for your company on Google, and will then be able to find your new brand website.
Create a redirect on your old brand website, so that when users type in your old website domain name, they are redirected to your new brand website.
10. Continue to grow your business!
By following the above steps, you’ve seamlessly transitioned to your new brand by informing your business network throughout the process and keeping them in the loop, as well as covering your tracks in case existing customers are searching for you via your old name.
Not to mention, you stirred up excitement and anticipation about your company and its products along the way. You turned your re-branding experience into a marketing campaign.
About the author: Asad Khan is the Founder & CEO of brand naming and business-writing Contest Marketplace CopyShoppy.com . His company also develops free online tools for entrepreneurs and small business owners, such as the Business Name Generator Guru . Asad posts informative and insightful tweets on his Twitter account, @Ace_Khan .