Company branding doesn’t last forever. Styles and tastes change. Businesses evolve. Customers demand the latest and greatest innovations. If you want to keep up, you’ll need to update your branding from time to time!
Rebranding a business is a great way to evolve with the market, outperform your competitors, and keep your company feeling fresh.
This article serves as our complete company rebrand checklist. While rebranding is a big undertaking, our list can help you make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row.
When is it Time to Rebrand Your Company?
Rebranding your company is a huge project. It requires time and money to successfully execute a rebranding, so it’s something you shouldn’t take lightly.
But there are dozens of good reasons to rebrand your business. Some of the most common include:
- Expanding into a new market. Company branding is usually designed to connect with your target audience. For example, cosmetics brands that target women are often elegant and simple. That means you may need to update your branding if you’re expanding into a new market or targeting a new group of customers.
- Branding is outdated. There’s no such thing as timeless branding! As design tastes change, it’s important to update your branding. This can be as simple as a logo refresh, or it could be a complete rebrand if your old assets are starting to look their age.
- Changing your products or services. Market demands change and your products and services will evolve over the years. If you’re adding new product offerings, removing old offerings, or if your target market is shifting, a rebrand will help align with your new goals and customers.
- Escaping a bad reputation. Earning a bad reputation can be a nightmare for businesses, especially if you don’t deserve it. Rebranding can be an effective way to escape an old reputation.
- Company restructuring. It’s common for businesses to be bought, sold and merged. When that happens, the new company often undergoes a rebranding to align itself with its related brands.
Types of Rebranding
- Brand refresh. A brand refresh is a small-scale touch up. This could mean evolving your logo to a more modern style, changing brand colours slightly, or refreshing your website, signage, business cards and other marketing materials.
- Partial rebrand. Partial rebranding usually involves bigger changes, like changing your logo or colour palette entirely. You should retain your themes and design language from the old branding, which improves brand recognition after the change is complete.
- Full rebrand. Some brands choose to go back to the drawing board. Everything is changed in a full rebranding – almost as if you are starting a new company. This is drastic, but it’s the best way to deal with major branding issues.
Our Company Rebrand Checklist
- Evaluate your current brand
You’re in business for a reason, so it’s fair to assume some parts of the company are working. Sit down and evaluate what does and doesn’t work about your current brand. Is there a problem with dated branding elements? The company name? Your marketing materials (e.g. website, business cards, signage)?
Don’t be afraid to be critical here – it’s normal for brands to evolve during their life, so you don’t need to cling to old branding elements out of nostalgia.
- Research your target audience
Companies usually rebrand themselves to better connect with their customers. That means customers are a great source of ideas!
You could hire a marketing company to conduct market research on a larger scale, but small businesses can simply speak to their customers. Conduct a survey that asks people what they think of your branding, what needs improvement, and where you’re going wrong.
Maybe the fonts are hard to read. Maybe your logo is confusing and people can’t tell what you do at a glance. Or maybe you don’t even know who your target audience is, and it’s time to get serious about defining your goals.
- Compare the competition
Your competition can be a great source of inspiration. Have a look at what similar businesses are doing. How professional does their branding look? Is their website user-friendly and attractive? Do they use things like vehicle signage to stand out from the crowd?
Make note of any good ideas. If you’re spending the money on rebranding, you want to make sure you can keep pace with the competition.
- Establish your brand’s new personality
Branding elements are usually built around the personality and goals of your business. For instance, trade-based businesses usually design logos that signify reliability and friendliness.
If you don’t have a brand personality, now’s the time to design one. Your brand’s personality should make its way into all of your marketing. That includes your website, social media, signage, logos, fonts, colour palette and everywhere else.
- Redesign branding elements
This is where the bulk of the work takes place. You’ve collected your ideas and research, and now it’s time to redesign your branding.
It’s usually best to work with professionals for this stage. Branding is a complex and design-heavy process. Plus, things like digital logo files need to be high quality to ensure they look good when used for things like large-scale promotional signs.
- Notify your customers of the change
Your customers will come to know your business based on its logo, fonts and colours. If you’re changing those things, make sure your customers are the first to know.
Consider running a dedicated marketing campaign across all your channels. Talk to customers on your website, social media, in-store and wherever you can. Let them know the change is coming with transparent communication.
- Roll out new marketing materials and signage
It’s finally time to roll out your new brand!
We want this process to be seamless and to take as little time as possible. Make sure you have all your marketing materials ready to go before you start making the switch.
Notify your customers of the rebranding date via social media, email, internal and external signage, and even sports signs. Then, on the day, roll out as much of the new branding as possible. That includes your:
- Website
- Social media imagery
- Internal signage
- Exterior signage
- Vehicle signage
- Physical marketing materials (such as business cards and letterbox drops)
Successfully Rebrand Your Company with Signage from Signs Brisbane!
Changing the look and feel of your brand is a big commitment. If you’re investing that kind of time and effort, it’s important to get it right. There are lots of details to take care of, and Signs Brisbane can look after all your signage needs!
Signs Brisbane works with clients right across Australia. We offer a complete range of signage, including internal signage, vehicle wraps, window signs, illuminated signs and much more.
If it’s time to rebrand your company, we would love to help. Our end-to-end service can take care of all your signage needs, from design through to printing, installation and project management. As part of an Australian signwriting network with more than 100 centres, we have the scale to manage and deploy your brand across the entire country.
Along the way, we will handle all the details, including installation and any local permit requirements. That frees you up to focus on running your business, and you can rest assured that your rebrand will roll out seamlessly.
You can explore our signage options online, or talk to us if you’re ready to design signs for your business!