If you’re anything like me, you put your heart and soul into your business decisions, including but not limited to your branding. When I first started Evolve Global Marketing, I pined over the colors and fonts, the messaging, the logo, and everything else that goes into a brand identity. I led the brand strategy and hired incredible creatives to carry out the parts that weren’t my forte. For me, that meant that I’ve never really considered a re-brand. I loved the Evolve Global Marketing brand and it took so much time and energy the first time around, it didn’t even occur to me a rebrand was something my business needed.
But as you can see, we’ve recently undergone a rebrand…and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hesitant at first. I knew how much time, effort, and capital I invested the first time around and I didn’t particularly want to do that again. So, why in the world did I decide to rebrand? I will share with you the thoughts and events that led us to our new branding but first let’s back it up a minute and cover the basics.
What is a rebrand?
For those of you who aren’t a part of the marketing or creative world, a rebrand is when you take the basic elements of your brand identity – your brand logo, colors, fonts, tone, and messaging – and you rethink, reconceptualize, or throw them out all together. For some, that means COMPLETELY changing everything you had and going back to the beginning. For others, that means tweaking and adjusting what you already have to just change specific parts of it. And for most, it involves a brand strategy and discovery process to make those decisions.
There are no rules and no formulas for what a rebrand looks like. It is a different process for every brand and it really should be dependent on the strategic direction and outcomes you want to achieve.
Why do you need to rebrand?
Great question! The answer? It depends on you and your business.
For example, say you own a construction company that used to offer excavation services. Now, you’ve acquired two smaller construction companies and are expanding to offer excavation, plumbing, and building services. You need to adjust your brand messaging to be inclusive and representative of your new products and services, but you love your logo, fonts, and colors. Great! Keep the aesthetic aspects of your brand, but rebrand your messaging. This will help your brand recognition with current and past clients while also appealing to potential new clients.
On the other hand, say you own a software company that used to work with small businesses and you’ve just won a contract for a big client. You want to transition into working with larger businesses and you now have the opportunity to do so, but your old brand doesn’t feel quite right for what you want to shift into. Time for a full rebrand! Get rid of those old colors, logos, fonts, and messaging, and create a new brand identity that transforms your business to the brand you want to be, not the brand you once were.
We can’t cover it all, but here’s our TOP 6 REASONS FOR A REBRAND.
Changing Customer Demographics
If your ideal customer avatar is changing, that likely means that the way you present yourself and speak to your customers needs to change too. You wouldn’t talk to a 30-year old married mom about a product the same way you talk to a single multi-billionaire. Their needs and priorities are different, which means that the way you present your brand, products, or services to be different, too.
More likely than not, your customer demographic isn’t changing that extremely (unless you’re completely changing your products or services, which in that case, it might be!). Customer demographic changes tend to look like slight changes – maybe the age range is getting older or younger, or maybe you’re expanding to bigger businesses or focusing on small businesses instead.
Your products and services might not be changing, but the way you present yourself to your customers needs to match who they are and what they care about. Changing customer demographics doesn’t always mean a rebrand, but it definitely can!
New Services or Products
This is a pretty common one! If you expand or adjust to offer new services or products, your brand messaging has to change. Your customers won’t know what you offer unless you tell them.
If your products or services are expanding, you might be able to add on to your messaging – but only if the old messaging also aligns with the new products and services. If your products and services are completely changing, then out with the old and in with the new messaging!
Does this necessarily mean you need to change the visual aspects of your branding too? Nope, not necessarily. That’s completely up to you. If the visual aspects of your brand align with the new products and services and you want to keep them, great. If they’re not quite right, invest the time and effort into the full rebranding process.
Mergers or Acquisitions
If you are merging with another company or acquiring another company, you may need a rebrand…but you also may not. I know, I know, that’s not very helpful! The thing is, rebranding is completely dependent on what you want and how you want to present yourself. If you’re acquiring a new company that does what you do but you don’t want to change how you present and who you target, you may not need a rebrand. If you’re merging with another company that results in you adding a new service but you just want to tweak your messaging a bit, great, go with that! If you’re acquiring five companies and your business is completely changing, it may be time for a full rebrand.
What’s important here is that you understand who you want to target after the merger/acquisition and how you want to present yourself.
Preparing to Sell Your Business
You may be wondering why you would spend time rebranding right before you’re selling your business. Good question! Well, as always, it depends on who you want to sell your business to. While you and your clients may love your brand identity, potential buyers may not. Just like you need to fully understand your target market and their needs and wants when running a business, when you’re selling your business, you need to understand your potential buyers and their needs and wants.
You know your business best and you know how valuable it is – but that doesn’t always translate to other people. To get the value that you deserve when you sell your business, you may need to invest in a rebrand.
New Business Location
This one is near and dear to my heart! As some of you know, I’ve recently moved from California to North Carolina. Evolve Global Marketing was always a digital marketing business that operated fully remote. Now, we’re working to service the Charlotte area and serve more customers that are local to us. We’re still definitely available for remote work and will continue to work globally as we have been for the past four years, but our target market is changing, and that means we need to change, too.
Interestingly, I didn’t choose to rebrand because of my physical move. The way that I talk to my customers and present my business didn’t really change too much with the move. The priorities, needs, and wants of my customers were pretty much the same from California to North Carolina.
For me, moving my business didn’t call for a rebrand, but for you, it might, particularly if you’re running a brick and mortar business.
Changing Strategic Direction
Last but definitely not least, a change in strategic direction often means a rebrand. I’ll leave this one short and sweet because a change in strategic direction can mean a lot of different things…including pretty much all of the reasons that we discussed above. All you need to remember here is that brand strategy is a part of your business strategy, and if your business strategy is changing, that means that your brand strategy may need to change too.
Why We Decided to Rebrand
Back to Evolve Global Marketing.
Over the last couple of months, my company evolved and started to take on a new direction. We were attracting new opportunities and customers, our processes were changing and becoming more robust, and our target audience was shifting. The Evolve Global Marketing brand that I came up with years ago was no longer fitting our new target audience…and that meant it was time for a rebrand.
Pro-tip: If you’re feeling resistant to a re-brand but for some reason it keeps coming back up in your thoughts…it might be time.
We knew we were ready for this change and I really wanted to distinguish ourselves from our new competitors and set us apart in the new market that we were transitioning into. The old Evolve Global Marketing brand just wasn’t going to be able to do that.
So, I took the leap, and I decided to rebrand!
I consulted with my leadership team, came up with the new brand strategy, then let my amazing team of creatives get to work. I’ll go into our actual rebrand process another day, but for now, all I want to tell you is that while deciding to rebrand did take some time and lots of thought…I am SO glad that I did it.
It’s never easy to know when it’s time to do a rebrand. You may feel like you don’t have the capital or you don’t really know if you should take the leap. You may even feel some attachment to your old brand – I know I did. But to be a successful business owner, you need to be flexible and be able to move forward when it’s time to move forward. My advice? If you’re seriously considering a rebrand, it’s probably time for you to take the leap. Good luck and happy evolving!
