As your brand grows, your mission and audience evolves as well. If you’ve had a blog or an online business for a while, you might be wondering how to tell when it’s time to rebrand your business. There are a few red flags to watch out for that will tell you whether or not it’s time for a change. It’s important to always tie your brand identity to your mission, and compare your current customers with your ideal audience. Are your values and mission the same as they were when you first started out? Does your audience have different interests and pain points that they used to? If the answer to these questions is yes, it may be time to look into rebranding so you can let go of the things that are no longer working for you and focus on the things that do. Keep reading to learn some tips on how to make rebranding your business a smooth transition. If you have any questions or want us to handle anything for you, reach out to us at Prebuilt Sites or The BBS Agency. We’d love to help you out!
Question of the day: Is it time to rebrand your business?
Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I just blew up the brand I’ve been building since 2010.
BIG Brand System is gone. For good.
In the midst of the rubble and the dust, one person stands alone, looking wary and a little afraid.
It’s me.
My new brand is “PamelaWilson.com”
Why would I switch to a personal brand after all of these years as a business brand?
And how does anyone know when it’s time to change their brand?
Let’s look at three red flags and where to start when rebranding your business.
1. Your brand is attracting the wrong people
Businesses change over time.
Your audience may change, your offers may change, the way you deliver them may change. It’s important that your brand reflects the online business ideas you’re working on today.
TIP: If your brand doesn’t speak to what you do now, it’s time for a change!
This is exactly why I changed my brand, by the way. I started out helping people build their brands, so I called my business BIG Brand System, and used the tagline: Your business may be small, but your brand can be big.
Now, I coach people to build profitable online businesses.
Branding is just a small piece of the work we do together.
Since I started my business, I’ve written three books, built a dozen courses, become a keynote speaker, and have taught thousands of online business owners.
The one common thread between all of these things? Me. That’s why I decided to rebrand under my own name.
If your brand doesn’t say what YOUR business does, start fresh. Who do you help and how can you describe that?
2. Your brand is outdated and irrelevant
Brands don’t have an expiration date!
But if it has been a while since you really looked at your brand, it might be time to take a second look.
Maybe you don’t need a full rebrand — maybe you just need a new tagline that reflects what your business offers today, perhaps after you’ve learned how to create digital products.
TIP: If it’s been a while since you’ve taken a look at your brand, ask friends and colleagues to look at it and explain in their own words what THEY think your brand is all about.
If it’s saying what you want it to say, excellent.
But if it’s communicating something else entirely, that’s a red flag that means it’s time to rebrand your business.
3. Your business has moved beyond your original brand
You know how you don’t like to have people over when your home is messy?
It’s the same thing when your brand is messy … You don’t feel like sharing it because it’s not a positive reflection of you and what you do.
Your brand and business blogging should make you feel like you want to stand up straighter and share it loud and proud. You should feel excited to share it!
TIP: Do a quick gut check. Does sharing your brand not feel great right now? If so, that’s another red flag you should pay attention to!
If it’s time to rebrand, here’s what you should do next.
Redefine your brand personality and ideal customer
Has your brand personality changed?
Let’s find out! Discover your brand personality in less than five minutes.
Once you have an idea of how you want to show up with your new brand, take some time to redefine your ideal customer.
Did you start out serving a specific kind of customer and then become interested in serving a different group?
Maybe your new ideal customer has more money to spend, or more interesting problems to solve.
No matter WHY they’re different, it’s worthwhile to spend some time defining them.
My Ideal Customer Profile worksheet will take you step-by-step through the process of identifying your ideal customer.
Work on your new verbal and visual brand
Since my website used to be all about branding, I have SO many links for you!
They’re all organized under the Build an Online Brand category page on my site.
My advice? Start with your verbal brand first. Work on the words before the visuals.
Once you know what you want to say, you can choose colors, fonts, and imagery that will speak your message.
How to update brand mentions on your website
My team and I became fast friends with the Google search:
site: yourcurrentdomain.com “Your Current Brand”
This search will surface all of the pages and posts that currently mention your brand name.
This is the most time-consuming part of rebranding your business!
You or someone on your team needs to go through this content and update the language. Every time a post or page is updated, you need to submit it to Google Search Console to be re-indexed.
Once this part of the project is done, it’s time to start telling your email list.
How to introduce your new brand to your email list without tanking your deliverability
I was terrified to change my sending domain in ConvertKit. My deliverability numbers are great right now, and I didn’t want to lose that status.
So I consulted with the support team and followed their plan of action to the letter.
They recommended first sending 2-3 emails letting my subscribers know they’d start getting emails from a new domain name in the future.
Next recommendation: send the first 2-3 emails from the new domain only to subscribers who opened the previous 2-3 emails.
Finally, ask those engaged subscribers to please:
- Move my message to their inbox folder if they used Gmail
- Whitelist my email address by adding it to their contacts list
- Reply to my message and say “hi”
Fortunately, my awesome subscribers rose to the occasion. I fielded hundreds of email replies in the days after I sent out the request. My deliverability — so far — looks great.
Source: Copyblogger
Rebranding your business is a mental leap
It can be tough to release a brand that isn’t working for you anymore. But I’m here to tell you — it’s very freeing to be on the other side of all the hard work.
My business rebrand gave me the opportunity to step back from my online presence and reevaluate what was working and what needed to go.
I hope your rebrand has the same effect on you!
Originally published on Copyblogger.
