Rebranding your business is a monumental task that involves many different moving parts. It can be one of the most exciting times for any business, but it can also be rather daunting!
Rebranding your business isn’t a decision to be taken lightly – it can be pricey and time-consuming, so it’s important you know your motivations for doing so are well-founded. Rebranding requires careful planning, strategising, and execution to ensure your identity resonates with your target audience and ultimately meets your goals.
We recently undertook a massive rebrand here at Cantarus to better align with where we are as a business, which included an entirely new brand identity, website, and even updates to our head office like new artwork and collaboration spaces. This took months of research and planning; it certainly didn’t happen overnight!
So, if you’re thinking about a rebrand for your business, here are 5 essential things you’ll need to keep in mind. Putting thought behind your rebrand early on will ensure success in the long run.
Before you begin a rebrand, it’s crucial that everyone in your company is aligned on what your purpose is. Rebrands are challenging, so you need to know what you want to accomplish.
Understanding your ‘why’ helps create a narrative around your brand and its future. Take into consideration your fundamental messaging and values and where you want to position your business over the next 5 – 10 years.
We often talk about the *Minimum Lovable Product here at Cantarus, which is essentially about creating products and services that deliver a simple, beautiful, and joyful user experience. It’s all about creating something people really want and enabling them to do it the easiest way.
Think about how you’d describe your brand to a stranger and the language you’d use. What is the first impression you would want to make? If you are planning to change the way your business is perceived, you might want to consider redefining your mission statement.
Your brand is one of the biggest parts of your business. But what about the people that work behind the scenes every single day? A successful rebrand starts from within, so be sure to give your employees a say!
When we rebranded Cantarus, we gave everyone a voice in the process via a staff-wide survey. Understanding what our team thought about our business was a huge and insightful engagement piece that helped us massively when it came to our rebrand.
Ask your staff questions like:
You might think you know your industry inside and out, but do you really know your target audience and fully understand their needs?
Before launching the rebranding process, take a look at your target market and existing customers and their perception of your business.
You’ll want to gather as much data and feedback as possible through surveys, polls, and interviews. See where your strengths are, but more importantly, your weaknesses, and use them to your advantage!
Also, don’t sleep on your competition! A market analysis is a great way to better understand what is going on in your industry. How are your competitors marketing themselves, and how do you want to fit in the overall landscape? What works for them, and how can you compete? Where are the gaps in the market and how can your business fill them?
Ok, great, research is complete! ✅
Now it’s time for the fun part! Your brand identity is the visual representation of your business, from your logo to your colour palette, to your digital presence and how you look in the real world.
You should take the time to develop a clear, consistent brand identity that aligns with the values and mission you established above. Your brand identity should be 3 things:
Time to get your hands dirty. Go far and wide with ideas, mood boards, sketches and mock-ups of all the different touchpoints for your new brand. Collaborate with each other and get excited in the process – there are no limits to how your new brand can look at this stage, so make the most of it!
Once you’ve landed on a solid idea or 2, put the brakes on these for now, and explore new avenues or see if there are different takes on those same ideas you haven’t yet considered. It’s very easy to get fixated on your first great idea, but without proper exploration, who knows what treasures you may have left unfound! We talk from experience – having at least 4 ideas we liked, we thought they were ‘the one’ before we got anywhere close to the final version you see today!
Take as much or as little time as you need, but remember to collaborate and keep everyone in the loop as the brand design progresses.
Doing the branding is one thing; releasing it into the big wide world is another! The transition to your new brand is one of the biggest parts of the process, and every single element needs to be considered – from updating your social avatars and email signatures, to URL redirects and your website’s SEO, to prepping press releases and public announcements.
The last thing you want is to realise three months down the line that you still need to update the logo on your business cards. Make sure to take stock of everything. A plan of action will ensure everything gets rolled out with minimal disruption to your business as usual.
Launching your new brand should involve a lot of hype and excitement. Schedule your email newsletters, shout all over your socials, and even record a short video or podcast with your CEO! Implementing a solid marketing plan for your rebrand will get the word out about your transformation, increase your brand’s visibility, and leave a lasting impression on your audience.
We’ve had an incredibly successful rebrand here at Cantarus; now it’s your turn! Our highly skilled team of UX designers, accessibility experts, and web developers can help bring your brand’s vision to life.
Get in touch today and speak to Rob, our Head of Experience Design.
