9 Steps: How to Brand or Rebrand a Small Business and 6 Mistakes

Your vision is to start new with your brand message and identity.

This article will walk you through the steps of a rebrand and the mistakes to avoid. When you’re done with this article you should feel confident in your decision to proceed or hold back on a rebrand. Businesses do this all the time, celebrities and even countries like Turkey are now doing this, so if you want to move forward, you should have a solid foundation for the steps you need to take.

What is a rebrand?

Most often, people will think of a rebrand as a change of logo or business name. However, it goes much deeper than that. You have to think of the connection a customer has to your brand, their experience through the whole journey of finding your business through and beyond purchase, their interactions with customer service, and more. This is a time to review values or set values if you don't have any, look at the mission, and the vision for the business. You don't necessarily have to change logos to rebrand, but it's often the clearest way a change has happened for the customer. To be successful, it has to be a true change, throughout the business. When you think of it like that, it's not going to be easy, but big change should bring big rewards.

Steps to get started rebranding

Many of the steps may be things you’ve never done if your brand has been around for a while but that’s okay. You should expect to get tremendous insights about your business if you follow all of these.

Step 1: Audit your brand to know the why

You may think a new logo would be useful, but you really need to review everything from the website to signage, to business cards to customer service to be very clear on the why and what needs to change.

Step 2: ID your team involved

Determine who is doing what internally and which vendors you will need to involve in the change. Vendors may be new to you if you’re looking at designers and printing companies for example so make sure you vet them first whether new or existing and they have a solid reputation.

Step 3: Review your competitors

What are you up against? Figure out what customers are seeing when they search for a business like yours. Go through a formal analysis that looks at the offerings, pricing, everything so that you have a full picture.

Step 4: Determine the ways you are different

Now that you’ve reviewed the competitors, how are you different? What makes you better? This has to be included in your new brand messaging. Do you stand out enough? What about the competitors would draw customers to them? How do you do it better? What are they missing?

Step 5: Develop a new brand message

Consider your customer personas and stories in this message and who you are targeting. You want to make sure your message is talking directly to these 3 to 6 representations of your customer.

• What do they want from your business?
• How do you talk to them?
• Where do you find them?
• What motivates them?
• Where are they going to find you?
• What are their goals?
• How do you solve their problems and jobs to be done?

Include your values, purpose, mission and vision in this message as well. If you don’t have that, this would be a good time to develop these. Even if you already have it, you will need to review it as this is a perfect time for updates.

Don’t forget about the essence of your brand, or the voice, tone and personality it has. You will need a tagline, a clear value proposition and brand messaging pillars. Brand messaging pillars are three major themes, benefits or selling points that differentiate you from your competition. All of these elements need to be very clear before you can finalize a visual or logo.

Step 6: Time for visual

Now you have all of your research done, and clarified the message you want to present, you can get started on the visual image, or logo. In addition to the logo, you may want to revise photos, data charts, your colors, fonts, videos, etc. so that it all fits together and looks cohesive. If a complete overhaul is important to you because you had legal issues or bad press, do not forget these items that may seem like less of a big deal. You want a completely new image and experience.

Step 7: Brand guidelines

Now you have all of the package ready to go, you have to have documentation of some sort so it can be communicated as needed. You want all of this in one package so your team, vendors if needed, and new hires know exactly what your values and message are, your overall brand message, appropriate colors, and visual identity. You could treat this as a standard operating procedure, but many will make this more creative and visually appealing.

Step 8: Testing

Testing is suggested along the way to ensure the response is what you thought it would be. Colors and logos can be tough if you’re not working with a designer. It’s useful to test even if it’s just a handful of people you know to see how they respond, if they can quickly identify who you are and if your messaging is clear and easy to understand. This is a good time to make edits before things are finalized.

Step 9: Roll it out!

It’s go time. You’ve done all you need to do and now it’s time to see how it goes. You will have to communicate with your team, possibly release a statement, and any other ways you want to market the change.

Mistakes to avoid in a rebrand

Mistake 1: Changing the name just because

Your name is going to be how most people recognize your business, possibly second to just the logo. Not to mention, search engine optimization and all of your marketing efforts will be for nothing when you do this. So, before you change the name, domain, etc. you want to make sure it’s necessary.

There are many reasons you should consider changing the name:

• People may be confused by your brand name
• Legally, you’ve been told you are too close to an existing brand and so you have to change
• It could be too hard for people to say or remember
• Your business may have evolved and your name needs to better fit
• You have had legal trouble or other bad press
• You want to target a new audience

The elements to consider in changing the business name:

• Don’t name it something that has technology that will become outdated.
• Careful not to call out a city or country that would make people think it’s limited to a location.
• Make it narrow enough for people to understand what the service or product is. To call it ‘Publishing’ is not going to help you stand out in searches and who knows what type of publishing this is.
• If there is any chance your business will expand in the future, make sure the name isn’t too limited. If you’re a medical office, you don’t want to call your business a cardiologist, when really, you plan to be more general practice at one point or vice versa.

Mistake 2: Making it more complex

Simple logos are often more successful than complex. You may think if you add more to the logo it may get more attention. However, the thought is too much going on in a logo can be too much in the mind of the person viewing, and therefore, they are less successful. The idea is to convey the message in a clear, recognizable way. Nike and Apple are examples of ultra-simple and clean logos that are recognized by anyone.

Mistake 3: Changing only the logo, colors, or only the website

If your reason for the rebrand is because your website is horrible, then that could be an exception to this one. However, if you’re trying to get more customers in general, then you really should be looking at the website, and the experience the customer is receiving overall. You want to appear new, fresh, and provide a great experience that makes people want to come back to your business so think about all of the aspects required to accomplish that.

• Does the team need more training?
• Do you need more tools for the team to effectively handle customers?

Mistake 4: Being too trendy

Ideally, you wouldn’t be rebranding frequently so whatever path you choose, you want to make sure it will have some staying power. Think of brands like Radio Shack where the technology became outdated.

Mistake 5: Doing what others are doing

You want to make sure you are differentiating yourself in product or service, but also in the branding. To follow what others are doing can be a mistake unless it’s adding elements that build trust with your business and customers such as community involvement as an example.

Mistake 6: Failing to plan

This goes back to project management. There will be roles assigned, and if it’s just you doing it, you will want to include the various milestones and vendors involved with estimated dates. If you end up with longer lead times or forgotten items, it will throw off your whole plan. For example, first and foremost, you will need the new logo to begin making any changes on your site, or things like business cards, signage, etc.

In summary, there are a lot of reasons to choose to rebrand. Make sure you are choosing valid reasons, and that you consider all the mistakes to avoid so it goes smoothly for you, and you get the results you are looking for.

Written by Nicole Hullihen, January 16th, 2022