Your brand is the foundation of everything you do in your organization—from mission and vision statements to corporate culture and experiences for both your customers and employees (or at least it should be!). As a result, it can be terrifying to make major changes to your brand to take it in a new direction.
But sometimes, it’s the best option you’ve got.
Follow along as we review some of the top reasons rebranding can do more for you, and why you should think of it as a viable option.
When you outgrow your brand
Picture this for a moment: You’ve built Hip Clothing from scratch, a brand that sells low-cost, quality garments for hip consumers wanting fashion for less. It’s doing well, growing steadily every quarter, but you’ve started looking into sustainable and environmentally friendly fabrics due to your increased corporate social responsibility measures. This is quite different from your hipster branding, and it’s also going to affect the price of your clothing.
What do you do?
Rebrand.
It’s now apparent that although your original branding is strong, your new ideas are moving your business into an area of responsible consumption that can still be trendy. This approach is different, and should be brought to your customer base with this in mind. A rebrand could go as far as a new name, colors, tagline, and more to create a new place in the market, or you could go for more subtle changes with increasing brand awareness and identity revisions, including a branding campaign that rolls out the new changes measure by measure.
Either way, rebranding could be the best option, as it gives you a chance to instill new goals, expand to new places, and explore new avenues without being constrained by a more one-dimensional brand.
Build trust in customers
If we take our previous example of Hip Clothing, let’s use a different situation. In this scenario, you are the new CEO of Hip Clothing after the last leader left under a cloud of less than positive sentiment from customers. Now, you are working with the current brand as is. At this point, you can see why a rebranding would be necessary.
The customers have lost faith in the brand itself, and this trend is showing in lower sales across the board and fewer visits to the direct website—your biggest connection with your customers. In order to rebuild trust with your customers, rebranding could be the best way to turn this around. A new name, feel, and voice can lead customers down a new journey, perhaps making them remember what they loved about the brand in the first place, while also finding something new to get into.
As you grow brand awareness, your rebranding may focus more on a new customer-centric brand identity, ensuring interactions along the customer journey will offer better customer experiences than ever before. As you can see, working with a new brand can help you redirect your customers to a positive goal. But don’t think of this as being only for customers. In this sort of situation, employees may also have lost faith in leadership and are likely to be worried about their own future. This new direction can also instill faith in them, leading to increased employee engagement as you work together toward a brighter tomorrow.
New mission/vision statements
This is an internal change, as we continue to use the struggling Hip Clothing brand as our example. The company’s mission and vision statements are integral parts of business, marketing, and operational strategies that affect every aspect of an organization. Outwardly, the mission and visions statements make the intentions, goals, and direction of the company known to the outside world. When these deeply important things change, it can also drive changes in the branding.
For example, the original mission/vision statement for Hip Clothing might have been “For today’s fashionista for a fraction of the cost.” But now, with the changes mentioned above, they are geared toward “A brighter future for the world, through sustainable fabrics and quality that allows you to be you.”
The two statements are geared towards very different ideals, and this change should resonate through the company and with their customer base. As such, a rebranding is called for. This is more than just an extension of their clothing lines, but a new way to view the focus of the company. It’s also one of the most comprehensive rebranding projects on this list. Here, it’s important to make sure you’re gaining feedback not only from your customers, but your employees as well, to combine O-data (operational) and X-data (experience) to inform your strategy.
To increase expansion revenue
Expansion revenue is amazing, as it’s the revenue you gain from your existing customer base. Many companies and sales teams like to focus on acquisition and gaining new profitable customers. But there is great power in focusing on increasing what you can do to enrich your already established relationships. By increasing expansion revenue, you increase customer loyalty, develop winning strategies that are customer-centric, and invest in customers becoming advocates of your brand.
Why would rebranding help in this case, then?
Because rebranding can help bring customers in as partners to increase their connection with the brand. This rebranding is different, focused more on incorporating increased customer interaction than anything else. Think of the financial industry, for example. There are banks and then there are credit unions. From the outside, it may seem that both offer similar products and services to their customers, but credit unions have an added value layer. On top of their community-driven approach, credit unions have members rather than customers. Members are part of the decisions the credit union makes, and because of this, their branding and marketing is—well, markedly different.
When you show how much you value your key stakeholders, expansion revenue can increase. If you’re starting to commit to that kind of loyalty, rebranding may be a good move. It’s not about redesigning and building the wheel, but about highlighting to customers how important they are in your journey so they can help choose what set of wheels they are riding on.
Redefine your goals
Similar to the changes in mission/vision statements, when the company works on changing their goals for the business, branding changes should be part of the conversation. If your company wants to swing from offering cheap clothes, like in the case of Hip Clothing, to outfitting someone in sustainable fabrics from head to foot, this is a different goal. Offering shoes, accessories, and more may not seem like a major goal change, but since it is going to increase offerings so much, it may be time to think more strategically.
Now, that’s not to say a company couldn’t go the multiple lines route and still be fine, but the overall impact is different. Hip Clothing is hoping to be more than trendy styles in leisurewear, but expand into couture fashion, shoes, accessories, and more, all with increasing prices depending on which line you would shop from. This larger expansion and redefining calls for a greater overhaul of their branding. The successful company is one that would make the rebrand an extension of the original, upgrading it as they are their offerings. It’s all in the intention.
If this sounds familiar, you’ve picked up on something that’s near and dear to our hearts, too! Redefining our goals is one of the key reasons why we transformed from SoGoSurvey to Sogolytics. In keeping with our evolution over the years, we wanted a brand that more aptly represented all that we offered – an exceptional customer-centric experience and feedback management solution with powerful analytics and deep support.
No matter where you are in the rebranding ideation stage, remember to not allow it to scare you. A rebrand can be a powerful tool to help you fall back in love with your brand and be more comfortable. It may lead to greater ROI in customer relations and employee experience. The possibilities are endless, so just remember to not cut yourself off from it.
Now is the best time to get feedback from your customers with powerful analytics to drive action. Don’t know where to start? We’re here to support your efforts!
