Whether you’re a new brand and need the steps to designing your perfect brand identity, or if you are in serious need of a rebrand, in this blog post, we will discuss the process of rebranding in 7 easy steps so your business can truly reflect what you want it to stand for.
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As a designer, I realize the importance of a cohesive brand identity.
However, many female entrepreneurs and small business owners fail to understand what their brand identity is when they first launch their business, and how they should be designing it.
Especially us women. We get so excited to launch our new thing, but forget some of the important “behind the scenes” steps we need to take first in developing a true brand identity.
However, today we are going to be talking all about rebranding.
Now, rebranding is a process of changing the image and identity of a company to meet the needs of the modern market. It is not an easy process, and to be honest, it can be quite daunting at times, but with these tips and tools, and free workbook to help you, it will be much easier.
What is a Brand and Why Does Brand Recognition for the Female Entrepreneur Matter?
A brand is a name, symbol, design or other feature that distinguishes one seller’s product from those of others.
The overall brand is the foundation for a company’s success. It’s what differentiates your company from your competitors and a strong brand will give your company an edge in the online marketplace and help it grow.
Building a brand for your small business includes things such as:
- Company name
- Symbol or design
- Color scheme/palette
- Brand voice
- Brand vision
All of these aspects will help differentiate one female entrepreneur from the others. The brand, YOUR BRAND, is the foundation for your company’s success. It’s what will set your small business from your competitors. A strong brand will give your company an edge in the marketplace and help it grow.
So, now that you understand what building a brand entails, it’s time to get to rebranding your current business to make it pop!
First, what is a small business rebrand, aka, a brand refresh?
A business rebrand is a strategic process (also referred to as a rebranding strategy or rebranding process) that aims to refine your company’s brand to be more in line with your company’s values and goals.
And as female entrepreneurs, we have many values and goals for our businesses, right?!
Now, rebrands are often redefined as a result of a change in leadership, an acquisition, or some other change that has occurred within the organization. The word “rebranding” is often used interchangeably with “branding,” but they are not interchangeable terms.
Branding is what you do after you have established your identity, whereas rebranding is when you want to make changes to your brand’s identity.
Business rebranding is a strategic process that aims to refine the company to be more in line with the company’s values and goals.
So now that you understand what we’re talking about, let’s jump to the 7 ways to rebranding your business for a successful rebrand.
7 Easy Steps to Rebranding Your Business: Tips and Tools for a Successful Rebrand
1. What kind of brand do you want to have?
First, I want you to ask yourself, “What kind of brand do I want to have?”.
Do you want a brand that stands for something or one that is just another product in the market?
Remember— Brands are not just logos, slogans and marketing campaigns. They are also the values, beliefs, and ideals that shape a company’s identity. It’s important to know what kind of brand you want to have before you start building your company. However, in some cases, we female entrepreneurs get so excited and want to jump right into the business before creating a clear vision for our branding.
Now, to be clear, this is not a question about the clothes or products your company will sell. It’s about what YOU want your company to represent and stand for.
to help you out, let’s start with, what is the point of your brand?
Is it to only make money, or do you really want to help people?
Do you want to make an impact in your community or desired circle of ideal clients?
If you want to build a brand that stands for something, then you should know why you are building it and what it will stand for in the first place.
2. How to Determine What is Wrong With Your Brand Identity & How To Fix It
As you learned in step number 1, it’s very important to decide from the beginning what kind of brand you want to have. However, in some cases, we miss that step and create the brand, and then have to go back and fix things with a rebrand.
So here are!
Now, as a business owner of your brand, you need to be the first one to effectively rectify any problems with your brand.
Remember, a brand identity is a set of visual and verbal cues that are used to identify the company.
When people see your products, get your emails, hear your voice, watch your webinar, you want them to to be able to say, “Oh, I know that is so-and-so’s business.”.
Now branding in this way usually consists of cues that are often used in marketing, advertising, and other forms of communication.
However, when we aren’t portraying our brand correctly, things won’t connect correctly. Which is why YOU as the female entrepreneur needs to determine what’s wrong with your brand identity and how to fix it.
How to determine what’s wrong with your brand and how to fix it
You can determine what’s wrong with your brand identity by looking at your company as a whole.
Things like:
- Who is your target audience, and are you attracting those people?
- What kind of reactions or replies are you getting to your emails, and are they what you were expecting?
- What types of people are buying your products and are they whom you envisioned being your ideal customers?
- You should also think about who your target market is and what they like as well as what you want them to think about when they see or hear from your company.
If you’re attracting the wrong audience, wrong customers, and your emails and marketing doesn’t even sound like you or your brand, it’s time to fix that.
Now that you’ve identified what needs to be fixed, you can start figuring out how to fix it.
You can either hire a branding agency or do it yourself (which is why you’re here, duh!) and utilize some beautiful branding templates from a designer (hey girl, that’s me!).
3. Who do you want your brand and business to serve?
Another step in successfully rebranding your small business, is to define your ideal customer/client(s).
Maybe your target market or audience is moms. Maybe the target audience that you want your brand to serve is teachers, or small business coaches, or other female entrepreneurs.
Whatever you choose, you need to have a clear vision of this, as it will portray throughout all of your marketing.
For example: If I had a brand whos target market was men, I wouldn’t have all of my branding, logos, color palettes and voice be that of a girly-girl. I wouldn’t have a flowery logo with pink buttons on my website, and say things like, “hey girl!” in my emails.
Do you see what I mean?
So, who do you want your brand and business to serve?
This will then help you create a unique identity and brand positioning for your company.
Now, brand positioning is the process of deciding who you want your brand to serve. It is important because it will determine what kind of messaging and tone you use to communicate with your customers.
Again, for example: if your business is geared towards mothers with children at home, it’s okay to use the terms, “hey mama” or “your kiddos” in your marketing, if it fits your voice.
Why? Because your audience is serving mothers.
Another example: If you sell shaving cream to men (because, hello, it’s men who usually need to shave their faces, not us women… at least in most cases, ha!)
You can use terms like, “is that five-o’clock shadow driving you crazy?”, because that will resonate with your audience.
So knowing who you want your brand and business to serve is essential in your rebranding efforts.
4. Understand the Current State of your Business and its Audience (aka, market research)
Another important step to any successful successful rebrand, is in the marketing strategy via market research.
This is to help you understand the current state of your business and its audience. Now, this research can be done in many different ways, but the most common is through market research.
What is market research and how do I do market research?
Market research is the process of gathering and analyzing data about the market for a product or service.
It is a process that helps you understand your customers and their needs and what they want for their problems.
It also helps you understand what your competitors are doing. Take a look and see what others are offering, but never copy. You are unique in your own way.
I cannot stress enough that market research is an essential tool in any business to help them make decisions, identify opportunities, and stay ahead of their competition. You must do market research!
The first step in market research is to identify the topic or problem you want to research. Again, circling back to what your business standing for. Is it to help “build a profitable digital product business” as Monica Froese teaches in her business?
The next step would be to decide on what type of data you need to collect from your target audience. This can be done by using surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other methods such as web analytics, etc.
Market research will give you a better understanding of who you are targeting and what they want, so don’t skip this step.
5. Develop a Clear Vision for the Future of your Business
Now that you know your ideal market, it’s time to create a clear vision for your business moving forward.
A vision statement is a clear and concise description of the future that you want your business to have. It should be achievable, measurable and realistic.
It’s also important to create a vision statement because it can help you make decisions about your business that will lead to success.
Now, a good vision statement will help you maintain focus on what your company stands for and where it wants to go in the future, so I highly recommend writing down your brand’s vision statement.
Identifying your brand image via a vision statement, will also help you decide what changes need to be made in order for your company to achieve its goals.
Without a vision statement, how do you know where you brand is supposed to go and what it’s supposed to achieve?
To create an effective vision statement, you need to:
- Define what success looks like for your company
- Identify the values of your company
- Describe what kind of environment or culture is needed in order for your company’s values and mission statements to thrive
- Figure out how you will create a meaningful impact on your ideal community
6. Develop a Rebrand Strategy That Matches Your Needs and Vision for the Future of your business
A rebrand marketing strategy is a plan that helps you achieve your goals moving forward in your business. It’s the foundation for developing your marketing mix and delivering your message to your customers in your existing brand.
Now, it’s important to make sure that you have the right marketing strategy in place. Again, one that matches your goals and vision for your current brand, yet, moving towards the new goals and end results for your rebrand.
A successful marketing strategy is one that aligns with your organization’s objectives, business goals, and target audience. It should also be flexible enough to adapt to changes in the marketplace or new technologies.
Developing a marketing strategy based on your business needs and vision for the future of your company, so it can achieve its goals by developing an appropriate mix of messages and deliver them effectively to your customers.
Ones that are aligned with your business objectives, goals, and target audience.
Think of things like:
- How are you going to launch your new website? Just send an email saying, “Boom, here it is world!”?
- Is your brand’s “voice” going to change in your marketing? If so, how are you going to make this shift without confusing your current audience and customers?
- If your logo, color palette, business cards, etc. are going to be changing, it’s very important to tell your loyal customers. If not, the next time you email them or send them to your website, they might be confused about who you actually are. Make sure you tell them so that there’s no confusion.
7. Designing for Successful Rebrand (my favorite part and how I can help!)
Again, circling back to knowing who your target audience is, this will greatly help in the design process.
This includes things like defining the age, gender, and personality of the target audience that your product or services will be marketed to.
Once you have a clear understanding of who your target audience is, you can start to consider how your product or service should visually appeal to them.
Now, when designing products or services for a specific demographic, it is important to maintain consistency throughout all aspects of the branding process.
For instance: if your branding color palette is purple and teal, it would look super odd to have yellow buttons and header images in your emails, and then red buttons on your website, and then lime green slides in your webinar slide decks.
Remember, that creating a cohesive visual identity will make it easier for consumers, aka, your ideal customers and clients to recognize your brand and understand what it stands for.
Creating your brand identity, visually
A brand identity is a set of elements that contribute to the overall personality or character of a company or organization. It is so important that your business has a strong and coherent brand identity in order to attract the RIGHT customers and build successful relationships with your people.
Here are some visuals to consider when rebranding your business:
- Logo- Think about your company’s logo and compare it to the logos of other businesses. What do you see? Is it time for a new logo?
- Color Palette- Again, think about your ideal customers. Who you want to attract, will be attracted to the right color palette.
- Business Cards- If you’re changing your logo and color palette, you cannot forget to change your business card design.
- Company Name- Surprisingly, some companies realize later on that the chosen company name no longer resonates with their goals and vison for their business, and they will do a complete rebranding and change their company name. Although I don’t recommend this entirely, since it is a lot of work, requires a new website redirect, etc., there are some instances when this is needed.
- Brand Imagery- What sort of images will you use in your marketing? What kind of images will you use on your website, in your emails and sales graphics? Make sure they remain cohesive throughout. »RELATED: Check out my post on where to find beautiful, feminine stock photos HERE.
- Website Theme- Sometimes, the layout the of your website is screaming for a rebrand. In this case you should really consider buying a new website theme. »RELATED: Check out feminine website themes I love HERE.
Rebranding and improving your brand identity requires a mix of creativity, hard work and research. You see, it’s not always about making something new or original; it’s about making things work for you and for your audience. Just remember to think about how everyone will see your branding and make sure that it is effective, while still being unique to you and your business. I know you can do it!
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