Rebranding is a digital marketing strategy that involves changing an established company's image. The process alters or completely changes a brand’s identity, significantly influencing people’s perception of the brand. It also realigns a brand to its vision and mission.
Research shows that most businesses rebrand at least once every 7-10 years. There are different reasons you might need to rebrand your company. You might have outgrown your current branding, undergone a merger, a public relations crisis, or redefined your services.
Though the goal is a successful rebranding of your business and taking your brand to new heights, it could also be a huge mistake. It could be a waste of time; in the worst cases, you could lose the brand growth and customer support you have gained.
GAP is a rebranding example of a company that did not implement rebranding tips and therefore committed mistakes that costed them a fortune. In 2010, the company rebranded and changed its logo. The backlash forced the brand to revert to its original logo design in less than two weeks. 
After considering the case of GAP company, you must have understood the importance of careful rebranding. Thus, to avoid being a victim of poorly executed rebranding, here you have the list of several important things before going into it.
Must-know 7 Points for successfully Rebranding your Business
Here are seven essential things you need to do before rebranding:
1. Evaluate if your Vision has Changed
Your vision is your company's compass. It guides your brand identity, future goals, and the impact you aim to have in the world. However, as times, people, and market trends change, your brand vision statement might change too.
This is why checking if your brand vision has changed is one of the rebranding tips you must follow before starting your rebranding project. Once you realize your brand no longer aligns with your vision, you know it is time to rebrand.
However, with time, some users created more content and collaborated with brands, establishing themselves as content creators and influencers.
As a result, Instagram shifted its vision. Now, it’s no longer about just making it easy for users to take pictures. It’s also about connecting people.
In 2016, Instagram rebranded to accommodate this change. One of the major features of Instagram was the redesigning of its logo, which they stated needed to reflect the changing Instagram community.
A quick look at the new logo shows that it does. While Instagram retained its original logo’s camera outline, you see a circle and a square in place of the full camera lens and other details inside. These are shapes that represent connections and connectivity.
2. Look at your Target Audience
A brand is only successful if it serves and reaches the right audience. This is why you must always have a firm understanding of your ideal target audience. If your business branding no longer works for your target audience, you can be sure you have to rebrand.
You might also notice that your target market has expanded. For instance, if you used to provide top-tier services as a SaaS marketing consultant to a specific demographic, such as B2B companies, but have expanded to include B2C companies, you might opt to do a partial rebrand or total rebrand.
People's views, needs, interests, and lifestyles change with time. If your business is not inclusive of all demographics, then at some point, you will need to revise your ideal customer profile.
For example, if your business targets today’s younger generation on social media, then Instagram and TikTok are the best channels. You would have targeted Facebook a few years earlier because it was the most popular platform amongst young people then. In other words, preferences change across generations.
So before you decide on rebranding, you must perform customer research to understand your prospective customers. You should also try to review your audience personas. You can do this by getting feedback from your current customers.
One of the best channels to collect such feedback is via email surveys. But ensure you verify your email list to ensure your emails reach the intended recipients.
You can also track demographic shifts in your potential customers through brand tracking. Brand tracking allows you to monitor customer engagement, preferences, needs, and purchasing habits through their online behaviors. This helps you quickly notice any changes in prospective customers and decide whether to rebrand and reach them.
3. Check if there are Issues with your Current Branding
People are attached to brands and their identities, so before you rebrand, you must be sure it is a necessary option. Otherwise, you will only frustrate your current audience. That can lead to high churn rates and low-profit margins.
After a few months of complaints and a 20% drop in sales, the company had no choice but to bring back the carton with the straw design.
You will often find visual elements, like company name, logo, and brand voice, you could leave intact because they are working just fine. Current customers identify your brand with these aspects.
Finally, you need to remember that rebranding is a corrective business strategy. If your brand has no issue, you do not have to fix it. Also, you don’t need to launch a rebrand for minor issues.
For instance, if you want to shorten your marketing copy, you can just use online tools like generative AI to rephrase the current one.
The same goes for things like logos and product images. Online tools let you quickly edit photo and graphic files, without needing to ditch existing assets entirely and start from scratch.
4. Analyze the Impact on your Current Brand Image
Before rebranding, you have to consider the work you have put in to build your current brand image. If you have a solid brand reputation, it means you have built strong relationships with your customers.
So you need to understand and analyze the impact your rebrand could have on your current branding. Then, take measures to ensure your rebranding efforts will not jeopardize your current brand stability and corporate image that your customers appreciate.
First, assure your customers that the new brand identity will not affect the product quality and the message your brand communicates. Then, let them know what may happen after your rebranding process. For example, you’ll need to explain how the changes may affect their experience with your brand.
If you tell them from the start what they can expect from the entire process, they won’t be as shocked by the results. This will help you preserve your brand image and customer relationships.
At one point, the company released too many advanced products to position itself as an innovative brand. This, however, yielded a negative impact on its brand image. There was a change in Adobe Creative Cloud’s brand associations from a “fun and creative space” to “too complicated.”
To rectify that, Creative Cloud again made adjustments, ensuring its products were easy to navigate and understand. It also changed its logo, mainly the colors and the main image, making it look bolder and more fun.
Make sure you think carefully about what can happen if you make drastic changes. Will your customers love the changes? Will they hate them?
Again, it’s best to get your target audience’s opinions before you make a decision.
5. Understand if other Brand Equity Elements will get Compromised
Brand equity is measured by the value a brand has, especially commercially. It is determined by your customers’ loyalty and awareness of your brand. You have more brand equity if you have your customers' recognition and trust. As a result, you will probably have a significant market share, which means more revenue.
So before rebranding, you must be sure that the process will help you retain and strengthen your brand loyalty and awareness.
The brand kept all its branding identity elements like the logo, products, and marketing campaigns. The only detail the brand changed was the packaging and a bit of typography style, which consumers appreciated because it is now more creative.
Again, you also need to perform market and customer research. It helps you learn about your current brand equity and decide whether to rebrand. Only proceed to rebrand if there is a clear potential of gaining more brand equity.
6. See if there are Changes in your Service Offering
A change in your services is one of the main reasons to rebrand your business. It can be because you have added new services or products to your list. You could have also decided to specialize in a single product if you previously offered a couple of them at once.
Rebranding due to a change in your service offering is often good for your brand. It amplifies your need to reach new customers.
It is essential to consider rebranding due to a change in your services if you rebrand after a merger, especially if each brand provides different products or services. Also, if the merger changes the delivery of your services, the rebrand will communicate this officially to your current and prospective customers.
Note that changes to service offerings might cause too much confusion in merger cases. Again, always think about your target audience before you make any significant changes. That’s one of the crucial rebranding tips you always need to remember.
7. Look at Rebranding Costs
Rebranding is not a cheap process and can easily make you break the bank. Research shows that an average rebrand costs companies 10–20% of their marketing budgets.
The thing is, this applies regardless of your industry. Whether you’re making changes to a medical or manufacturer website design or overhauling a fashion or SaaS company logo as part of your rebrand, the process costs money. This is why outlining all the costs you might incur and creating a budget before executing your rebranding plan is always key. You don’t want to spend more money than you can and should.
But how does creating a budget help you exactly? The budget makes it easier to see how much you should spend for one rebranding task in order for you not to overspend for the entire rebranding process.
Your business objectives and data about the specific branding elements should guide your budget. You can also project and make goals for what you hope to achieve from your branding. Remember to set performance metrics to measure the ROI after the entire rebranding process.
Finally, one of the most crucial budget rebranding tips you need to remember is that the rebranding timeline may rely on the allocated budget. The larger your budget, the quicker it might be to implement the entire process.
Ready to rebrand your Business that will positively impact your Audience?
Every business, at some point in its lifetime, requires a rebrand. There are different reasons companies need to rebrand. It could be due to a merger, a new brand vision, or to manage a PR crisis.
For whatever reason, you might need to rebrand your business; you can be sure it is a high-risk marketing strategy. But rebranding strategy could also be high-rewarding if you consider specific rebranding tips before starting your rebranding journey.
You must check if your vision or target audience has changed. Identify the issue with your current brand image before you rebrand unnecessarily. Also, analyze the impact rebranding will have on your brand image and equity.
Check if you have changed your service offering, and finally, consider the rebranding cost and create a budget.
Follow these tips before rebranding, and you’ll make the right decision for your brand and grow your business.
If you want to talk to experts about rebranding your business, you can contact webdew. We will listen to you and understand why you want to change your brand. Then, we'll help you make the right marketing choices.
Don't hesitate to reach out to us, and we'll guide you through the process of rebranding in the best way possible.
