Rebranding your small business can provide just the boost you need when it’s done for the right reasons. Unfortunately, I consult with too many business owners considering a rebrand who are blinded by brand envy, shiny object syndrome and desperately making a mad dash to look like everyone else.
Stop the madness, y’all! A great rebrand will make waves in your industry, not blend you right into the crowd. But a great rebrand is based on a strategic decision to get specific results. If you do it right, and focus on more than just a new look, a rebrand will absolutely be a powerful boost to your business.
Here are a few really good reasons to consider a rebrand.
You’re Swimming in a sea of sameness
Do a quick search online for others in your industry. Does your business stand out in any meaningful way or are you all lost in a wash of watercolor? Don’t just stop with comparing surface visuals. Is there anything unique about your voice and copy that makes you more relatable to your audience? Are you using the same cliche language that everyone else is?
The visuals, the voice, the experience…it’s all part of your brand package, and it all needs to work together to separate you from the pack and let people know why you can solve their problem better than anyone else. Build a solid foundation for your brand based on strategy, and it will be so much easier to make your visuals represent the unique aspects of your business instead of trying to look like everyone else.
you are standing out for the wrong reasons
Standing out is the goal, but you want to stand out because your brand represents something to your audience. It connects to their emotions and their needs, and it looks stunning doing it. Not because it looks like an unprofessional mishmash of trends and all of your favorite colors. I’m all about running a lean business and not going into debt. There are a lot of parts of your brand that you can DIY very well while you save up the funds to work with a professional, but there truly is no substitute for a strategically-designed brand, print pieces and website.
On-brand print assets and a website make your ideal audience sit up and take note. Only then, do you get the chance to wow them with the marvel that is the rest of your business. Without the foot in the door those visuals give them, they are already on to someone else before you have a chance to show them the goods.
you aren’t attracting the right crowd
Do you find yourself constantly dealing with customers who aren’t the right fit for your business? You work so hard for them but can’t seem to make them happy. Or maybe you have a brick and mortar shop, and you have tons of lookie-loos who never buy. The good news is that your brand is attracting people. The bad new is that they’re not YOUR people. When you develop a strategic brand, you build all of your visuals around attracting a specific type of person and making them feel specific emotions. What good does a beautiful design do if it’s not engaging people who will buy from you. You’ll spend less time trying to sell to people who don’t want what you are offering (and who has extra time to spend on people who aren’t buying?).
Your audience has shifted
Sometimes your business begins by serving a particular audience but organically shifts to a different group of people. It may just be that those founding audience members have aged, and the brand has aged with them. What was once a young, hip brand with a trendy audience now has some wrinkles around its eyes and soreness in its knees (says this tired, sore mama). Sometimes your brand has to shift with your audience, and the old brand isn’t speaking to them like it once was.
Or maybe you’ve tweaked your service or product over the years, and the audience you set out to serve isn’t in the market for the bigger, better, more niched offering. There may be some overlap in the two audiences, but your focus should be on attracting the new crowd rather than appeasing the old.
You are raising your prices
The price your customers are willing to pay ultimately boils down to your perceived value.
I’ll give you a second to let that fully sink in.
On the surface, it doesn’t matter one little bit if what you give your audience is worth even more than you are asking. What matters is that you create the perception that it’s worth it and make it a no-brainer decision for them. Obviously, then you have to over deliver to keep making sales. But if that impression isn’t there, those initial sales won’t come.
If you are raising your prices, you may need to evaluate how people view your brand to make sure that your audience knows it’s worthy of the price tag. And don’t be deceived into thinking that you can charge a higher price just because your brand LOOKS better. Part of a rebrand is aligning the experience of your brand with your visuals. Whether you sell physical products or services, your customers should feel pampered and know that it is worth every cent.
Your goals and vision of the future is changing
I always feel like such a broken record, but I’m going to say it one more time…your brand is so much more than the visuals. The visuals are the tools you use to draw your audience in, and you can’t make your best impression without knocking them out of the park. But the groundwork for creating them is knowing your mission, your goals, your compelling brand story. Once you know these things inside out, your visuals can be used to support them and draw in the right audience.
After a few years in business, it’s pretty common to feel the need to pivot a bit. Often, when we start businesses, we don’t really know what to expect. When you realize the reality isn’t aligned with the initial plan, it’s time to adjust your goals and focus on a clear vision for the future. If that’s drastically different than your original plan, that is a sign that it might be time to rebrand.
Maybe you’ve outgrown the mission you set out to create and need to clarify what you really set out to do. Or your focus is changing because you realize what your customers value is completely different than what you expected. This could be disheartening, but it’s actually a great thing. It means you are clarifying your purpose, which will help you tell a compelling brand story that your customers can get behind.
Or maybe you set out at the beginning to be everything to everyone. Don’t be embarrassed…it happens to the best of us! If that’s you, then your brand has probably become a hodgepodge of messages without a consistent narrative. So dig in, focus on what your actual goals and positioning are and make your visual brand reflective of that.
When done with intention, rebranding is the best way to become relevant to your ideal audience. When it seems impossible to get your foot in the door of your industry, it might be time to rethink your path to that door.
