Your brand represents your business. It’s what people recognize as they scour shelves for your products or search for your services online. It’s a familiar logo on a product label. Or a memorable color scheme on a business card. Branding establishes your business in the collective minds of your clientele, which makes it essential for success.
So how do you improve the brand of your business? And should you? If you’re at a crossroads, contemplating the pros and cons of rebranding versus sticking with your current business image, then you have numerous considerations to weigh. We’ve outlined a few of the biggest pros and cons of rebranding, so that you can make an educated decision on your next move (if you should make a move at all!).
The Benefits of Rebranding Your Business
Rebranding can prove to be a powerful shift for a company, and it can mean more dollars on your bottom line. Consider rebranding if you need to update the company image, if you’d like to gain attention from a new audience, if your company goals have changed, if the market is changing, or if you’re creating a brand from scratch.
Overhaul Your Image
If your current company image isn’t successful, then it’s time for an update. It’s unfortunate when it happens, but companies can fall victim to a tarnished name due to a poor review, a news story, or a bad product. Or, you may just have a bad brand to start with. To impress your clientele and regain your clients’ trust, it’s time to overhaul your brand. Create a new image, color scheme, and logo for your business to create a new identity and story for your company.
Impress a New Audience
If you’ve always catered to a local audience, and it’s time to make the leap to a national demographic, then you may need to craft a new brand that says: We serve all of America. Or, if your current clientele consists mostly of seniors and you want to capture younger generations, you may need to create a brand that is more “with the times.” Strive to reassess your current brand by captivating a new audience, without losing cherished clients from your current demographic.
Change Your Vision
If you’re shifting gears with your company’s products, services, or even the mission of your business, then you should adapt your brand to reflect those changes. Perhaps your company used to provide manufacturing services, and you shipped your goods to a packaging company who shipped your goods to a retailer; now, you provide end-to-end services, from manufacturing to packaging to retail — it’s time to update your brand to encapsulate your products as you dip your toes in the retail market.
Keep Up With the Market
Things move quickly. Rebranding helps you to keep up with the times. If you’re in a volatile, fast-paced industry, your products and services may be constantly evolving, and your image should keep pace. Think about those in the tech industry: In this landscape, new products and services reach the marketplace daily, and a stagnant brand may get swept under the rug in a highly competitive, changing market. Make your company image cutting-edge to capture new clients in these growing market spaces.
Brand New, New Brand
If you’ve never really built a brand, now is the time. Oftentimes, small businesses rely on word-of-mouth advertising and a simple company name to earn sales. As business grows, you’ll need to create a brand to raise awareness of your products or services. Burt’s Bees is an ironic tale of success that embodies this lesson. After rebranding with an image of the company owner (Burt), and a comforting honey-yellow color scheme, the company found exponential success. Read more about this case study in success, check out Fast Company’s article, Behind The Burt’s Bees Logo: Meet The Unlikely Beekeeper Who Became The Face Of A Global Brand.
The Drawbacks of Rebranding
While you may be tempted to rebrand your company every few years, rebranding may prove to be a mistake. Be wary that you may lose brand recognition, you may be changing your brand to early or often, you may lose your current demographic, or you may lose the cohesive nature of your brand.
Loss of Recognition
If you’re already seeing success from your brand, then you shouldn’t muddy the waters with a rebrand. Ask yourself: Do people recognize my brand when they go to the store? Do they seek out my brand knowing that it backs a product or service that they already trust? If the answers are yes and yes, then you don’t need to fiddle with your brand.
Time to Grow
A brand campaign can take years to see success. And flipping back and forth with your company image may hinder its natural growth. If you’ve just created a brand or switched to a new brand, you’ll need to give it time to measure its success quantitatively — especially if your business is just starting out. Be patient, and keep an eye on your sales to measure the success of your brand. If you see growth, don’t mess with your brand for a while. If sales are stagnant for months on end then you can kick around the idea of an image update.
Shifting Demographics
While you may want to pursue a broader demographic to increase the all-important bottom line, be wary that you can lose sections of demographic as easily as you may earn them. Let’s say that you currently cater to folks with a modest income with inexpensive products that work just as good as the pricey stuff. Changing your brand and upping the price could prove to be a bad move. You may lose those clients that came to trust your brand, praising its price point. And at the same time, new clients may not be willing to pay top dollar for a product that’s attempting to shoulder into the high-end market. Don’t sacrifice one demographic for a long shot at a new audience.
Coherent Cohesion
If you offer a myriad of products and services, then your brand should represent them all. After all, that’s what a brand is: A cohesive, recognizable representation of your business and the products or services it offers. When rebranding, it could prove costly to split your brand, creating a new image for some products while leaving other products behind. If customers trust your name as a whole, maintain that leverage with a consistent, recognizable brand. If you’d like to update the look of one product line while keeping the style of another, you can still do so — just don’t forget to keep some sense of cohesion. Consider keeping a uniform logo for all of your products. Or even a simple color scheme can concretize the cohesion of your umbrella of products.
Product Labels for the “Old” and the “New”
Regardless of whether you decide to stick with your brand, you rebrand completely, or you’ve decided to make some minor tweaks, we’re always here to help you get your image out there. Leapin’ Lizard Labels proudly provides a variety of products that will help you to create a recognizable brand so that you can spread the word about your business while drawing the eyes of your clientele. Count on us to create custom product labels, stylish stickers, banners, and more. Explore our custom label and sticker printing services, and get started with a quick quote for your project! As always, you can always reach out to us if you have any questions about your upcoming printing project!
