Branding is what defines your business. You use colours, text, and even an image to represent what you are and what you stand for to consumers, your loyal customers, and your competitors. How you create your branding will affect your business reputation, the decisions of your target audience, and its ability to become top-of-mind.

Because of how important it is, there is no assurance that you will get it right the first time. Many companies, big and small, have rebranded for many reasons which includes:

• Changing the brand message and mission
• Targeting the right audience
• Reinventing to keep up with a changing society
• Dispelling a bad reputation

Most of these reasons are all because the marketplace is changing. Shannon DeJong, who is the founder of the branding agency House of Who says, “People rebrand when how they view themselves is no longer consistent with how they’re viewed by the outside world.” This means that with proper rebranding, you will be able to make what you are much clearer and more current.

A successful rebranding touches more than just changing up colours or font styles, there must be a change in how the business is being operated. So here we explore the essential tips for rebranding success and how it can inspire changes within your business.

Understand why you need to rebrand

You must know the purpose of your rebrand first before executing your strategies. What are your new goals for the brand and what kind of changes are you going to make to accomplish each one? Maybe you want to target a new emerging market of consumers, and collectively respond to a specific tagline or products. Maybe you want to create a new image that will make you unique among your competitors. Knowing these will help you track your progress, as well as organise your strategies properly.

Think about what people can get from your brand

After setting goals and knowing the purpose of the rebrand, the next thing you need to align is what you stand for. What is your vision for the brand and what do you hope people will get from it? A brand is not just the representation of a company, but these are symbols that can inspire people to take action. The easiest way to do this is to think about what you want your brand to become and what you want it to mean to people five or ten years from now.

Make sure everyone knows about your rebrand

Do not hesitate to go public with you rebranding. Keeping your loyal customers and even your competitors in the loop reflects well on your reputation. It shows that you care enough to ensure they know the changes you are making and how it is going to affect how you service them.

It can start little by little like changing your domain name to secure consistent online branding. You can host an event with media coverage (depending on the size of your business, you can invite bloggers instead journalists). You can also advertise this change profusely both on social media (using paid promotions), through your website (by writing about the journey to the rebrand), or through traditional means like buying a space in a magazine or newspaper.

The important thing is to spread the word and let everyone know about the work you have put in the rebranding.

Keep brand consistency in mind

Remember that while you have changed your visual representation, there should be design elements that remain familiar to your customers. Note the companies that went through rebranding recently like Taco Bell, Mastercard, or Huffpost. While they made clear changes to their design, they have retained familiar elements to help their customers with the transition.

You may want to keep your voice and language, too. In keeping with transition and familiarity, the reason is because you want to retain your existing consumers while attracting potential customers with your rebranding. They need to feel that they are still interacting with the company they know and love.

Take rebranding as a chance to expand and be creative with your business. Think of it as a challenge on how you can market and communicate the relevance of these changes to your audience. Remember that to stand out these days, amidst the thousands of advertisements the consumers are getting, you need to be daring and clever. So go on and experiment with copy, social media posts, hashtags, and articles while keeping brand consistency in mind. Do these things and your rebranding will go off without a hitch.