Today one of the major customer turnovers that a small business is bound to experience is over the web. Of course, the thought of branding is daunting as it is not an easy task to get together all the various aspects of a business organized within the small budget while ensuring that the message reaches the right audience. But as brand is an imperative aspect of your business you need to be seriously considering rebranding at the earliest.
There are a lot of myths connected to the rebranding concept. Firstly, you do not have to think of this as a new task; obviously, you have reason to worry because you had already spent much of your time and resources on creating a brand from the scratch initially. But, rebranding does not mean that all your previous branding efforts are in vain.
You can think of it this way – the competition is getting tougher, people’s thoughts and ideas are emerging and newer trends are evolving – your business needs to be ready to face challenges that are happening around you. Unless you realign your branding strategies for the new change, how is it that people will know your business is growing and is up-to-date?
How do you find out whether your business needs rebranding?
Here are some criterions against which you can examine whether the time is ripe to rebrand your business:
1. Growth in your industry
Keep an eye out for the latest trends and for newcomers in your industry. If it is growing and expanding with numerous newcomers hitting the platform, then it is time to examine and analyze what they are offering and how it differs from yours. It is always best to get this tracked because newcomers have newer and fresher ideas to attract people. Grab the opportunity! There could be no other time that could be better than this to rebrand your business.
2. Are you up-to-date?
It often happens that businesses are not ready for a makeover although they have been here for ages. But, who doesn’t like a change? Your people are eager to embrace a change; why not you? If the tone and voice of your brand has not been updated for a long time (maybe for many years) then, it is time that you think about getting it updated.
3. Widening business reach
Generally, when a small business comes first starts out, your major targets are the local audience. But, over time your business expands thanks to the web, reaching out to an audience out of the local zone. At this point, it is essential that you change the tone of your brand for a wider audience.
Now, you know whether your business needs rebranding. If yes, how do you get this done?
Here are some tips to help you with this:
1. Customer feedback
Have you been monitoring your customer responses and feedback in the near times?
So, when you take up rebranding, it is necessary that you should be asking your customers for their feedback, which will help you to work on those aspects that they consider are missing from the present.
You can ask the following questions during the process of gathering feedback:
- Are your customers’ needs satisfied?
- Are your solutions meeting their desired level of expectations?
- Are your employees satisfied?
- Why do certain people reconsider their decision to do business with you or are not interested in your brand?
- What are the opinions of community leaders about your brand and organization?
- How would your customers rate you in comparison with your peers?
Once you have these answered along with customer thoughts on how well your brand pleases them, you can work on fine-tuning your brand for the better.
2. Consistency
This point should arrive at the last, but it is being mentioned here because there are two things that must be kept in mind when you set out to rebrand your business. Firstly, you cannot keep on changing your brand message and tone every other day. Secondly, you need to remind people about your presence.
Consistency is essential. Of course, you are changing the tone of your brand through rebranding. But, this should be long lasting, as people are not going to remember your brand if you are going to change it every other day.
Also, there is all possibility that you may get lost in the crowd since the competition is high and there are a lot of other brands that are competing alongside with you. So, it is necessary that you organize campaigns and promote your brand in all possible ways to ensure that people do not forget you.
3. Why should your people buy from you?
You have been in the business for a long time and you have a couple of loyal customers. Don’t you think it is high time that you expanded your reach? When you think of expansion there is another question that your brand needs to answer:
How do you convince people that they should make a purchase from you?
It is obvious of them to think, “Why should I buy from you? What is it that you can offer me which others cannot?”
Work on your brand promise strategies. Ensure that these are in alignment with your organization’s futuristic goals and your brand will stand to fulfill the promises that your brand’s message conveys.
4. Tell a story
We all love stories. There could be no other better alternative than narrating a story to convince, motivate and transform a customer through rebranding.
There are certain aspects that you need to be considering when telling a story about your brand.
It should have true stories on how you worked it all, what are your values, what are your long-term vision and mission, and finally, how your brand would add value to the lives of your customers.
The aim of the story should be to ensure that the reader feels good in the end and it manages to generate a confidence and trust in their hearts to go ahead and join hands with you.
Once you plan to rebrand your business, it is not you alone in the race unless it is a one-man initiated business. Ensure that you involve each and every person, starting from the stakeholders and members of your director board to the employees of your organization – those who help generate ideas that will be the voice of your brand.
Author Bio:
Vipin Nayar is a Digital Marketing Strategist at Acodez IT Solutions. He has expertise in all facets of digital media marketing be it SEO, SEM or Social Media. Thus his vast experience over the years enables his clients enhance their online presence and open up new business avenues. Keeping updated with the latest online trends, together with his keen insight into customer behavior he formulate innovative strategies that succeed.