Despite the internet offering plenty of permanent legacies, the irony is that nothing lasts forever – even your branding efforts. Such is the cycle of life: interests change, engagement falters, and brands you once saw as successful a few years back are in a slump.

As an owner of a brand, you may notice your marketing efforts have hit a wall. You might do all you can to increase your overall reach, such as implementing methods to increase followers on your Instagram or getting likes from real Instagrammers. But you may hit a wall that forces you to rebrand your business.

The process does not only mean changing the fan page description and business logo; in many cases, it will demand a change in your creativity and force you to make things interesting to attract attention.

The brand concept is out of your control in many cases, as it relies on public perception. But many marketers, unfortunately, fail to make these considerations, and the rebranding effort fails.

When You Need to Do a Rebrand

Before rebranding, you need to know if it is necessary. It is high-risk, and demand a lot from you, so you must only do it when they are necessary. Some legitimate reasons are:

When Your Business Is Changing Its Messaging and Focus

Perhaps you may notice that your branding does not reflect your values, or you want to change to new services and products. For instance, these changes may reflect expanding your product line, committing to socially conscious goals, or changing to ‘premium’ pricing from a ‘discount’ reputation.

Your Brand Struggles to Stand Out From Other Brands

Many brands in the SaaS and B2B sector struggle with this, as the businesses in these niches, are many and offer identical services. Both established and new companies go through rebranding efforts due to their need to keep up with changes.

Your Target Audience Is Unhappy With Your Brand

Unlike the other reasons, this is something you will have to learn the hard way because there is no good way of asking your target audience why they may not like your brand anymore. Some signs can indicate this – such as increasing numbers of negative comments, backlash or a significant crisis against the brand, and customers calling your brand out negatively compared to other brands.

The Steps to Take When Doing a Rebrand

To make the process easier, we have outlined some aspects to look for when rebranding your business and increasing its chances of success.

Planning Is Important

Planning is essential for every brand manager and marketer because this is the stage when you develop your direction. Without it, you risk failing your efforts because your audience will not accept your idea.

To start, you need to take some time to conduct primary and/or secondary research, which will give you the best information you need to align your new vision that fits with your consumers. It also helps you decide the main indicators that you can use to evaluate your brand performance.

Some questions you can ask include the engagement rates outside the core audience, the things you can improve, and your successful efforts – including what made them successful.

Consider Teasing the Rebrand

After doing the hard work of strategizing the rebranding process, you can send out pieces of information to your audience and help them adjust to the change. After all, humans do not respond well to abrupt changes, so doing this may help ease possible backlash and make your audience excited for what is ahead. Among the best methods of doing this is using teaser campaigns, which will get people talking.

Always Be Present

After the rebranding ends, the work still goes on. Ensure you celebrate your successes, and also clarify why the rebranding was necessary.

You should engage with your audience to do so, such as answering their questions and replying to their posts about the rebrand. The real-time reactions of the audience are the best way to gauge whether your efforts are successful and will also help you know where to re-evaluate and tweak certain things.

In conclusion, rebranding is not the easiest task, and public perception makes it more sensitive. Therefore, you must make a major effort, but doing it properly will reap many positive outcomes.