There are multiple investments a business owner can make back into growing their business- such as hiring and growing the salesforce, adding new innovation and functionality to a product or service or investing in technology platforms, all of which have obvious ROI potential.
But what about a brand refresh? When to refresh your brand assets isn’t always obvious, and on the surface can feel like a “nice to have” versus a “must have”.
After all, how will you know a branding improvement alone will make a difference?
Sometimes we don’t know, what we don’t know, until we see it- like the example in these brand logos. The originals obviously feel more dated, even an Instagram color change looks fresh, but we just don’t realize it until we see it.
IS A BRAND REFRESH WORTH IT FOR YOUR BUSINESS? THE ANSWER LIES IN THESE 3 QUESTIONS:
1. Is There Confusion Between What Customers Know You For Versus What You Want to be Known For?
Are you spending more time overcoming misperceptions? This question is the most insightful because it doesn’t mean your branding is obviously broken, it is just not hitting the mark. As business owners we make many individual choices to grow our brand over time- add products, evolve messaging, partner with influencers, etc… and you reach a point where the collective impact of those choices is at odds with your branding and the meaning behind the branding choices has changed.
2. Are You at a Point of Transition with Your Business?
Is there a shift that has or will happen that is making a significant change for the company? New innovation, change in leadership or approach? Brand refreshes are most effective when they are tied to a message, together they create visual and verbal impact, a much stronger resonance with our audience than just rebranding alone. It provides opportunity for you to demonstrate the change we want to see, and not only benefits your customer, but solidifies how the business sees itself internally.
3. Has Your Audience or Competition Evolved Faster than Your Branding?
As with hairstyles and fashion, there are trends in brand design and how we communicate that are cues and indicate what is new and modern. We can’t control what our competition will do, but we can ensure our brand continues to resonate. This is especially true if you are trying to expand your reach to broader, younger audience which is often the case for many businesses.
If you answered yes to any one of these questions, then yes, a brand refresh is worth the investment. What we don’t often consider is the potential new business and sales we are missing and losing out on because of our lack of brand resonance.
When Should You Not Rebrand?
When you aren’t ready to fully implement change. A quick fix of just one problem area such as the website layout may lead to confusion for customers if new graphics, colors, photography style, etc. aren’t appearing in other marketing touchpoints.
When you can’t articulate on paper what makes you unique and valued to your customer (e.g. your point of difference). If you can’t articulate it in words, then a brand refresh won’t be able to either.
Where to Start:
With The Brand Evaluator, we offer our 30-day brand assessment that lets you know exactly how strong your branding is with our proprietary brand score. We provide a clear perspective on how your in-market communications compare to key competitors and 3 action steps to ensure a any brand refresh is worth the investment.
The Brand Evaluator is a joint venture of independent brand builders – Michelle Thompson, BrandSpark Design LLC and Christine Sech, Brave Oak Brand Building LLC. We work with emerging businesses to help them clearly and meaningfully convey their organization’s value through brand building strategy, design and content that drives results.