10 Signs It’s Time To Rebrand Your Business

Rebranding your business can be a tough decision.

It’s a little bit like when your favourite t-shirt becomes too tight

or worn out. You know it’s time for an upgrade, but nostalgia

makes it difficult to make the change. Furthermore, if you spend

every waking hour managing the day to day aspects of running

your business, it’s easy to miss that its time to shake things up.

Rebranding your business at the right time can breathe new life

into your marketing, help you to reconnect with lapsed

customers and widen your base to reach whole new market

segments. Launching a rebrand when it is not necessary,

however, can be very expensive and may actually have a

negative impact on your marketing and sales.

It is, therefore, important to consider your move carefully and

make sure that you launch a rebranding campaign at the right

time. Here are 10 key signs it may be time to rebrand your

business.

1. You Aren’t Attracting the Correct Market

If you started your business in the correct way, chances are

you were targeting a very specific target market at the start.

However, you may have found that this market wasn’t as

interested in your products as you thought. Maybe they are,

but your price point is wrong for them. Maybe your idea of this

target market was too broad, and you actually need to target

one of several sub-markets that you are now much more

aware of.

Rebranding can be a great way to either increase your brand’s

appeal with your original target market, or to change your

brand’s identity and target an entirely new one.

It can be as simple as changing the layout of your website and

printing some new custom stickers, but we would recommend

taking it as far as possible, including, if necessary, making

changes to internal processes and products too.

2. Your Company Feels Stuck and You’re No Longer Excited

By It

This is more of a personal point than a business one, but if

you don’t feel proud of your business when talking about it to

others, or you don’t feel motivated to keep growing it, it may

not quite be the right kind of business for you.

This is more important than you might think – you need to be

motivated and passionate to do your best work.

If it is possible to rebrand your company to something that will

make you excited again, this is one of the most important

things you can do – and who knows, it might have the same

result for your customers!

3. You Want to Leave a Certain Image Behind

Maybe you attracted a type of audience you didn’t want to.

Maybe you had some negative reviews or bad word of mouth

in a certain demographic or certain corner of the internet.

In some cases, these will be justified criticisms that you need

to move away from and make huge changes to your business

to succeed. In other cases they will be unjustified and no real

changes to your business will be necessary, but it can still be a

great idea to rebrand in this case in order to shed any links

between the bad press and your company.

Reshaping your brand can help you shed these past images

and regain control of how people see your business.

Uber found themselves going through something similar in

2017 after getting involved in numerous scandals, from sexual

harassment to a toxic working culture.

Between this and taxi driver protests, sentiment for Uber was

at an all-time low at the time, and it could have been the end

of their business. However, they spent over 1,000 hours

interviewing people from all around the world to learn more

about how they were viewed.

Resulting from what they learned from this experience, Uber

then designed an entirely new brand including a new logo, with

the intention of transforming their image from a small smartup

to a global transport supplier. Based on their success since, it

clearly worked!

4. The Wrong People are Applying to Work With You

A growing business needs new passionate employees who

believe in it’s goals in order to keep growing successfully.

If the people that are trying to join your organisation are not

what you expected or hoped, there is a good chance your

branding is to blame.

Are these people getting the wrong idea about what your

organisation is doing? And if so, is there a chance your

potential customers are getting the same mixed message?

Changing this can put off the wrong type of applicants and

attract the right ones, which aligns your team with your goals,

ensures a passionate and dedicated team, and often rubs off

on leads or customers too, as everybody loves to deal with

someone who genuinely believes in what they’re doing!

b]5. To Represent a Change of Ownership or Merger[/b]

If you have purchased a business from somebody else, then

rebranding it to suit your own goals can be a great way to take

ownership and align the business with your own goals for it.

Equally, in the case of a merger, the goals and objectives of

the newly created entity can be quite different from your

original targets.

A rebranding can represent this change in direction and help

get across the message of what your business can offer.

One example of this sort of rebranding that we can learn from

is Verizon. The telecoms giant has its roots in the Bell

Telephone Company, the organisation set up in 1877 by the

inventor of the telephone.

In the early half of the 20th Century, AT&T had an almost

complete monopoly on telecoms after acquiring the Bell

Telephone Company and numerous other competitors across

the US.

In 2000, this already hugely successful corporation merged

with GTE, another large telecoms company. The executives of

the newly formed company wanted to move away from the

previous names and the baggage of having acquired almost

every major telecoms supplier in North America. They decided

to come up with a new futuristic name to cover their entire

business, and settled on Verizon.

This is now one of the world’s biggest telecoms suppliers and

the company is said to have spent over $300 million

promoting their new brand in the first year, grabbing huge

market share and mindshare at the same time!

6. The Business is Becoming Unfocused

Maybe scope creep has you offering more for your clients and

customers than you originally intended. Maybe you’ve invested

in too many different areas and the company’s focus is no

longer as narrow as it should be.

You could even be losing sight of the original aims you had

when creating the business. This is all too common in

business, especially as companies begin to scale and grow. In

the busy day-to-day grind of running a business, combined

with the pressures of a competitive marketplace, it is easy for

your focus to shift so that you suddenly find yourself focusing

on services and goals that are completely different from your

original intentions.

A rebrand can be a great way to shed fat, refocus your

energies, remove what’s not necessary and excel at what is

necessary. This is a great way to take stock of where your

business is at, and remind yourself of where you want to be, as

well as the best way to get there.

As you start the rebranding process, begin by returning to your

business’ original mission, vision and core goals. Build your

new brand strategy so that it is completely instep with these

elements and will position your perfectly to meet your goals.

7. The Marketplace has Evolved

Some industries stay the same forever, whereas others are in

a constant state of change. Competition can also drive

changes in the marketplace and force you to react.

If you feel like customers are looking for something slightly

different to what they were when you first began operating, it

may be time for a change.

Similarly, if competitors have begun to offer unique

propositions that are getting the attention of your target

market, it might be time to respond with your own new

offerings.

Regular rebranding is a crucial part of staying competitive and

appealing in a competitive and changing industry.

8. You Don’t Stand Out Enough

This can be a big problem – if your branding is too similar to

your competition, it needs to be adapted to allow you to stand

out from the competition and grab your customers’ attention.

It may be that competition has grown and developed

significantly since your business started, or it could just be that

you didn’t give branding as much thought as it deserved.

Either way, blending in with your competition is a strong sign

that it is time to rebrand your business. Look for a way to

appeal to your ideal customers while being authentic to your

brand’s identity and values.

It is important to find a way to differentiate your business from

your competitors while not losing sight of who you are. Don’t

try to make your business stand out by pretending to be

something you are not. Instead, think about your unique selling

points (USPs). What are the products or services you offer

that your competitors do not? What makes you different from

them?

The answers to these questions should form the basis of your

rebranding, as this will tell your customers and potential

customers why they should choose you over your competitors.

This will deliver strong results in the long term and help you

position yourself in control of your market.

9. Your Idea of the Business has Changed

So far, most of the signs you need to rebrand your business

covered in this article have focused on external signs such as

changes in the market or competition.

But it’s entirely possible the thing that spurs change will be

internal to your business.

Maybe you learned things about the industry you never would

have imagined. Maybe you’ve come up with new product ideas

that don’t exactly fit with your original business plan and

branding strategy.

On the other hand, it could be that you’ve realized your original

idea doesn’t work at all but you have an idea of how you can

pivot your business to a more successful approach.

Success in business means being flexible and adaptable. It is

about knowing when things are working and when they are

not. If you know that your business is not working in its current

form, it is time to shake things up. Rebranding can help you to

completely transform your business and take it in another

direction.

These situations provide an opportunity where rebranding your

business could be the next step to growth and long term

success, and taking advantage of this opportunity could prove

highly beneficial in the long term.

10. You’ve Expanded Beyond Your Original Location

Local business names such as “Plumbing Supplies Seattle” or

“Tree Surgeon South Wales” may seem like a good idea when

you’re starting out and focusing on one specific location.

But as you grow and expand into new areas, this kind of

business name can restrict you, projecting an image of being

small and local that limits you from expanding into new

locations. As your business grows, you may want to be able to

open up new sites in different locations or service different

areas. Or you may need to move your business entirely due to

changing circumstances.

Regional businesses often need a rebrand as part of going

national, or international. This may mean rebranding your

business entirely, or it might mean simply creating a new

branding for an international division.

Don’t Forget

One thing is for sure – business owners can easily neglect

branding when they are too busy focusing on the day to day

tasks of running a business. But it’s something that should

always be kept in the back of your mind, as your company’s

branding is often the first exposure a customer has to your

business and your brand will stick in their mind.

This means that your branding should be optimized for your

business and your Rebranding your business can be a tough decision.