How Do You Know When You Should Rebrand Your Business?

Proper branding is a key component of any successful business. But if your business is not so successful, declining or flailing, does it make sense to hit the reset button? As an experienced website development company the topic of branding and rebranding does come up quite regularly with clients. So, how do you know when you should rebrand your business?

This is a tough question that honestly some people simply don’t want to hear the answer to. A brand represents a lot of things after all. Along with being your name, logo and associated colors it is also a representation of your reputation and virtual identity with ties to the emotions people feel towards you.

Often there is also quite a bit of ego intertwined with the brand as the owner or owners typically helped craft the brand and any sort of failure of the brand or business can feel like a personal failure.

But the bottom line is that business is business and sometimes you need to take the ego out of the equation and focus on the best decision to help your business flourish rather than flounder. So let’s start by asking some key questions:

• Does your brand reflect your current business? – In theory your brand communicates your identity as a business to current customers and potential customers. That means who you are, what you stand for or business ideologies you follow and the products or services you provide. Your brand should accurately convey all of that. In many cases older businesses that have transformed or adapted over the years need to rebrand because they have outgrown or changed direction from the original brand and an update would help reflect that for future customers.
• How old is your logo? – Many of the larger, successful corporations understand the evolution of a logo as an aspect of evolving their brand. Apple, McDonald’s and Pepsi quickly come to mind as three businesses that know when to launch a new logo with a marketing campaign designed to help freshen up a brand and gain new relevance with evolving demographics. An outdated or boring logo can often use a refresh in regards to color, font and even style of icon because people naturally associate new with better and often associate old with outdated or worn.
• Who is your current target customer? – One reason to rebrand is if you aren’t currently attracting the right customers. This can happen for a few reasons such as a changing target demographic or that your business has been around long enough for a generational shift. In either case, if you are looking to attract a new audience often re-branding can help if your current brand is attached to older products, services, or in the case of millennials is attached to an older generation that they can’t or won’t relate to.
• Is your brand generic? – Sometimes when you launch a brand is seems unique and special but later you realize it is either too generic or too close to other, bigger brands which causes you to get lost in the shuffle. It is very important to stand out in the crowd and re-branding can help showcase the uniqueness of your business.

So how do you know when you should rebrand your business? The answer is based on how you just answered those four questions. If your current brand is not providing you what you need for two or more of these questions then it is time for a change, which often is a good thing as it can lead to new customers and growth when done right.

Be sure to check back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for great new Lounge Lizard blog articles.