How To Rebrand A Small Business?

For any company, the brand is made of various factors that include marketability, brand awareness, culture, associations, market differentiation, the experience of the company in treating customers, and the promises offered to customers. Not all times, the sales and revenue will be good for any company, if your company is growing through slow times, then it is a good time to decide on rebranding your business. Before rebranding, one should ask themselves what the right time is and how the factors can be improved to make customers happier. Rebranding may also be necessary if you are targeting a new market of customers and your business look no longer appealing to your customers. If you are one of the small business owners looking for rebranding, read this article to know how to rebrand a small business and how it affects your customers.

What Is Rebranding?

Changing the name or design of the logo is not what rebranding is all about. Rebranding is a marketing strategy that involves the change of the company’s corporate image, development of a new name, change in the slogan, logo design change, target audience, mission, vision, and values to build a new brand image for the company. The new brand image must be familiar to customers, competitors, leads, and partners. Rebrand techniques help give your small business a new facelift by attracting new customers and standing out among competitors.

How To Rebrand Your Small Business?

Rebranding is a good way for any business to stimulate growth, expand, increase profits, strengthen its workforce, and gain a competitive advantage. Remember that rebranding constitutes an internal change that recreates your business’s identity. Rebranding takes time, so when you have decided on rebranding, make sure you have time for the process to pull it off smoothly.

Rebranding Strategies For Small Business

1. Determine Your Present Identity and What Your Identity Should Be

Before starting the rebranding process, check what is running smoothly and what is not. While making changes, try to fix things that are not working smoothly and leave things that are going on fine. Consider your company’s current culture and ask questions about how the new brand can fit into your culture. One of the best ways of making changes is to talk to your loyal customers and current employees and take their valuable feedback and concerns. Once you have decided to make changes, think about the market and discover how the industry has changed since your product was launched. After making relevant surveys find out where your product can fit into.

2. Create A Brand Committee

It can be wrong to change the company logo and brand all by yourself. After the brand changes, the marketing and salespeople are responsible for taking the new company into the market. If the new logo does not impress them, then they cannot show interest in selling the products. Before changing the brand, it is recommended to create a brand committee, which looks into the process. The committee should take feedback from most individuals working at different levels and take their suggestions. While deciding on the brand committee team, here are the people who are to be included

• CEO of the company
• The Design team
• Marketing Team
• Sales Team

Without the inclusion of key individuals, the brand committee can face many issues.

3. Get Started With New Design

Now it is time to design the new logo with various options. To complete the design process, you could hire an external team or use your internal design team. It is now the task of the design team to complete the logo design by considering the company’s information, the scope of the company, the audience data, and other valuable information available. The main aim of the design team should be

• Create a few samples and take feedback from the brand committee
• Incorporate a narrative for the logo they designed and explain the same to the committee
• Develop ongoing feedback about the design from both the committee and the CEO
• Make necessary changes suggested by CEO and committee and complete the design

4. Style Guide Process

After the design is approved, it is time for the style-guide process, which most small companies skip. The style guide is the core functions to be implemented and should include the following.

• Establish the Logo in various sizes and transparent ones to be used for black or white background
• Avoid the use of old brand colors
• Define the fonts, photography, graphics, illustrations, icons, and standards to be used
• Use the words in the Logo that describe the brand.

5. Introduction Of New Brand to Employees

Even though the committee and CEO like the new brand, it has to be owned by the employees who are responsible for taking the brand into the market. To introduce the new brand image, arrange an internal campaign before pitching it to the customers. To celebrate the occasion, throw a party and have the creative team explain the theme of the new logo and brand. Has the logo printed on t-shirts, mugs, and other things, which can be distributed among the employees so that your employees get closer to the new brand.

6. Audit the Changes Made

Once the plan has been approved to change the name or brand, it is time to make the necessary changes in the documents to make it easier for the employees to move the brand into the market. Make updates on social media, websites, and invoices.

Mistakes To Avoid In Rebranding

While rebranding is one of the tough tasks, many benefits include creating a better brand identity. Successful rebranding for a small business is not simple, and there needs to be a lot of research and patience in doing the work. In rebranding, some mistakes are committed, and here are some of them.

• Avoid Changing the Name without any reason
• Avoid rebranding only the Logo and Website
• It is a bad idea to leave a simple logo for the sake of creating a more interesting logo
• Do not follow the herd in rebranding, create your own identity
• Not going in an Organized manner
• Skipping the step of Style Guidance

Conclusion

It is common for small businesses to rebrand to get closer to customers or explore new markets. As the rebranding process is not that easy, most companies are now turning to agencies for help as the companies might not have enough resources or time for the rebranding process. If you are ready to hire an agency, ensure that you provide all the necessary information and your basic idea on design. If you are a business owner considering rebranding your business, you can talk to our professionals at Ayatas Technologies. If you have questions regarding rebranding, logo design, or any queries, feel free to contact us.