What does a marketing rebrand actually look like?
Be honest – when you think of the word “brand,” what comes to mind? Colors? Fonts? Logos? Most business owners think branding is only visual. You wouldn’t be wrong if you thought the same. Brand identity includes visual elements that make up your brand, including but not limited to the colors, fonts, and logo. But there is so much.
Maybe you’ve noticed…we’ve recently gone through a complete and total rebrand! New colors, new logo, new fonts, new messaging – new brand identity! Making the decision to rebrand Evolve Global Marketing was no easy feat. As a marketing agency owner, I do brand identities and rebrands for businesses all the time. It takes a TON of work. But I knew that if the Evolve Global Marketing brand was going to match our new strategic direction, we needed a rebrand.
I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of why we decided to rebrand and how you know it’s time for a rebrand for your business in this blog…mostly because I already did in my last blog! (Read it here if you haven’t yet.)
Instead, in this blog, I want to go over the exact process I followed with my team when we rebranded Evolve Global Marketing. I’ll detail all of the components of our rebrand and the considerations that are relevant when we take another brand through this process, too. Let’s get started.
Our Marketing Rebranding Process
Unfortunately, there isn’t one set formula for a rebrand, and a lot of it depends on what you actually need out of the rebrand. That doesn’t mean that there’s no process to follow, though. Today, I’m going to share with you the process for a FULL marketing rebrand – that means new colors, fonts, messaging, and strategy. You don’t always need to follow each of these steps, but if you’re looking for a full rebranding, here’s what it looks like.
#1: Brand Strategy
If you’ve read any of my blogs or ever talked to me, you know where I start to solve any problem: Strategy. You can’t have a successful rebranding without starting with a strong new brand strategy. Your strategy is where you define all of the essential details that come to make your brand.
Who are you as a brand? Why are you undergoing a rebrand? Who is your target audience? How do you solve their problems?
Without knowing the answers to these questions, you can’t even begin to write out your brand messaging or choose colors or logos. All of the elements of branding are meant to make your customers feel a certain way. If you don’t know who your customer is and how you want to make them feel, how are you going to be successful?
So, we started with strategy. We took a look at our previous target market and detailed out who our new target market is. From there, we were able to strategize on our unique positioning and the problem that we want to solve for our new and previous customers. We talked about how we want them to feel when they interact with our brand, how we want them to perceive us, and how we can show them that they truly can trust us to help them.
#2: Messaging & Leveraging Storytelling
Once we were sure that our new brand strategy was where we wanted it to be, we got started on the actual rebrand. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Your brand messaging is the most important part of your brand identity. You could have an amazingly beautiful website with perfect colors, graphics, and fonts, but if the words on the page don’t speak to your customer, you are never going to get any sales.
For us to write our new brand messaging, we had to understand the story we were going to tell. Leveraging the power of storytelling is a unique and effective way to speak to your customers in a way that makes them feel something and want to buy from you. Instead of having disjointed random words on a page, by using storytelling, you can take your customers through a journey – and that’s exactly what we set out to do with our rebrand and with all of our clients.
We figured out the story we wanted to tell and then turned that into copy and brand messaging.
#3: Logo Redesign
This was not originally in my plans! Are you surprised? Most people truly think that a rebrand is new colors, fonts, and logo and that’s it. Nope, definitely not. When I decided to rebrand, I wasn’t planning on including a redesign. I loved what Evolve Global Marketing looked like and I knew how much time and effort it would take to choose a completely new visual for the brand.
But I have a brilliant team of creatives and designers and they convinced me it was time for a redesign. This may not always be the case when rebranding, but for us, it made sense. We were evolving in every way and were ready to represent this in a visual way, too.
So, I met with our lead designer and explained the new brand strategy and vision for the brand. She translated that into a new logo, colors, fonts, graphics, and all the other visual elements that you can imagine. The end result was a new brand visual that I absolutely love. The visual elements of our rebrand match our new brand identity and messaging – and the old ones did not.
#4: New Website
Here’s where we started to tie it all together. You can completely rebrand your business, but if you don’t do anything with the new brand elements, what is even the point?
For us, the most important place to show our new brand was on our website. New brand messaging means new website copy. New brand visual elements mean a new website design. Nobody ever said a rebrand is easy!
Once we were set on our redesign, our team got to work on our website. Along with one of our copywriters, I wrote the new copy for the website and laid out what I wanted it to look like. My creative team took my ideas and made them come to life on our website. Now, our website represents who we are and talks to our new customers in a way that they can relate to.
One thing I want to point out here is that most people think that the most important part of the website is the design. Yes, the design and layout are absolutely important, but the messaging is just as important as the design. When you’re planning for a website redesign, plan to invest as much time and effort into the messaging as the design. If you don’t, you may end up with a beautiful new website…that doesn’t convert leads into sales.
#5: Social Media…TikTok here we come!
Ah, the dreaded social media. Hang on, don’t jump to any conclusions here, I know that some people love doing social media. If you are one of those lucky people, that’s great. But most business owners didn’t start their business to have to spend hours making TikTok videos and Instagram posts. The reality is, if you’re not consistent on social media, you’re not going to be as successful in your business. So, if you’re one of those people who dread social media, I get it. It’s hard when you’re starting and it’s a big learning curve for a lot of us. If you’re one of those people who love social media, you are one of the lucky ones, and many business owners are envious of you! Regardless of how you feel about social media, it doesn’t change the fact that it is important for businesses.
Our rebrand meant that we needed to illustrate our new brand on social media but also that we needed to truly evaluate where we were and how we could improve…and that’s when we figured out that TikTok was calling our name!
#6: Plan & Execute
Last but not least is to make sure that you have a plan to execute your new brand across all relevant internal and external structures (this can include step #5: social media). Share the new brand with your team! Send an email out to your newsletter! Post on social media! Do whatever you need to do to show the world who you have become – and do it with intention (AKA a plan).
I hope that this blog helped you see all of the work and effort that goes into a new brand…but also all of the excitement and joy! We spend so much time working with our customers that sometimes we forget to get excited about our own business and processes. Rebranding Evolve Global Marketing took time and energy from my team, but it gave us an opportunity to work together to better our business, and I’m so glad we did it.
Happy evolving!
