Thinking of rebranding your company? Read this first.

What is a rebrand?

Like most things on the internet, there are vastly different opinions and approaches to answering this question, to kick this off here’s my view:

A rebrand is a complete overhaul of your business identity. It’s not just a new logo or a new website, it’s a new perspective of why the business does what it does, who the audience is and how the business improves the lives of its consumers.

It’s a mark with intention, it solidifies the moment a business evolves, grows and matures. It breathes new life into brands that have run stale, gives new goals to employees and builds on the unique proposition of a brand in its market.

It’s an exciting time in any business lifecycle and when approached right, can be a very successful business investment.

When it comes to rebranding a business, there’s one common reason you might not get the most out of the project - that reason can often come down to not identifying or having measurable project goals before you get started.

The approach of your rebrand really can play a leading role in business success - all you need to do is take a little time to understand how.

Below are a few things to think about before you start your rebrand journey.

When to rebrand your company

To rebrand or not to rebrand - a rebrand usually comes with major changes to the business or products. There’s a few things that might trigger the conversation, it could be:

• New owners
• A new CEO
• A new business strategy
• A need to change your reputation
• An evolving business plan
• Penetration of new markets
• Funding or capital raise

The list goes on.

These are all quite naturally pivotal moments but they are definitely not the only reason to rebrand your business. The question is less about when to rebrand and more about why you should rebrand.

Why should I rebrand my company?

Before anything else, you need to understand why you are looking at rebranding. Sit down, grab some drinks along with the key stakeholders and brainstorm why you are having the conversation in the first place.

Try and stay away from talking solely about your brand’s aesthetics like colours, shapes and fonts. Having an outdated logo is still a valid reason, but it can’t be the only reason. To get the most out of your rebrand you need to dig deeper.

For example, here are just a few things that could fall under the category of why you would rebrand your business.

Are you:

• Repositioning the business?
• Pivoting your service or offering?
• Creating new products?
• Targeting a new audience or market?
• Redefining your tone of voice?
• Updating your purpose, mission and values?
• Creating new perception and brand awareness

After brainstorming, you should have a good list of reasons why you are embarking on the project.

Now you're in a good position for the next step - creating your goals.

What makes a rebrand successful?

For the greatest chance of success, you need to create tangible goals associated with your project. These need to be measurable and they need to be related to your business goals.

Identifying how your rebrand will improve your business and profitability is such an important step that many, many people don’t take.

You might include goals like:

• Increasing gross profits by 50%
• Increasing first-time customers by 25%
• Attracting high-quality new business leads
• Improving staff retention and performance
• Increasing website inquiries per month

All these things are possible with a rebrand and they will all increase revenue for your company if the right steps are taken. This also gives a responsibility to everyone on the project, it gives your team the same tangible goals to reach.

When discussing concepts this will help turn comments like “I don’t really like that colour” to “Is that a colour our audience is drawn to?” The difference here is turning subjective feedback into comments that relate to business goals.

Tip: Stay away from subjective goals like:

• A brand that everyone likes
• A brand that’s on-trend
• A brand that looks good on Instagram

These don’t directly impact business and are impossible to measure with metrics. It also starts to create a brand based on personal tastes rather than improving revenue.

It’s a dangerous road to go down and often leads to underwhelming results.

How much does a rebrand cost?

This differs wildly between businesses, it also varies massively between brand agencies so it is important to have a bit of an idea of how much you are willing to spend.

This is where those measurable goals come in. Your brand, marketing, advertising or any of your communication should be an investment, not a cost. You need to see a return on what you spend.

A simple equation is using the percentage rule.

Let’s say your annual profit is $200,000.

As part of your rebrand project your goal is to increase that profit from 200k to 300k.

Based on that increase of 100k and using 20%, your budget to get there is 20k.  

With that goal reached, that’s an 80k return on your rebrand investment in the first year, not to mention the returns year on year that follow. That’s pretty damn good investing by any standard.

So whether you are profiting $500 or 500 million, creating measurable goals will give you an idea of how much you should invest in your rebrand.

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