Launching a rebrand is not as simple as switching out logos and calling it a day. There are many factors to consider, both internally and externally, to successfully unveil your rebrand to the world. Without proper planning and execution, even a well researched and thorough rebrand strategy won’t get the impact or attention it deserves. To ensure your rollout is seamless and effective, follow these tips before getting started.
Prepare the Rebrand
When all of the details and research are completed and the final assets are in place, the rebrand will be almost ready for release. Before communicating about it, however, take a step back to truly understand the commercial drivers and story behind the entire rebrand. The right messaging and understanding throughout the company will make the roll-out process easier and ensure consistency in communications from your team.
Outline Your Brand Story
A rebrand is more than just a refresh to the design of a logo; behind it is the story of your business. Share the reasons that kick-started the rebrand, all the work and research that went into it, and the future goals of the business.
Sharing details about the intentions behind any logo or name changes can further showcase the growth goals of the business. The story of your brand can add a powerful human element to the process and allows customers and employees to engage with your organization on an emotional level. The reasons and goals behind the rebrand can be used as powerful messages in email marketing, social media posts, and press release announcements to drive buy-in and appreciation for the business.
Establish New Messaging Framework
How you communicate about the rebrand can impact how well its perceived both internally and externally. Establishing a proper messaging framework will aid in aligning internal members about the changes as well as how and when to share them in external communications.
The messaging framework allows you to support your company’s changes with hard evidence and consider exactly how you want to communicate the business’ core values, goals, and history going forward. Set up this framework for all future communications—not just those directly associated with the rebrand—to maintain the messaging around not just where your business has been but also where you plan to go in the future.
Promote the Rebrand Internally
Before rolling out the rebrand to the general public, it is important to communicate about it internally first. After all, a successful rebrand starts with those who work with your brand every day, and this includes all members of your business, from senior leaders and stakeholders to entry-level employees.
Get Buy-In & Feedback
Your team should be wholeheartedly behind the rebrand strategy and goals. Those involved in the process can be influential in supporting the promoting the rebrand internally. Starting from your senior business leaders, a clear vote of confidence encourages other employees to embrace the rebrand and generate excitement for the future of the company.
While generating excitement and buy-in from internal members, allow them the opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions. Internal feedback, both good and bad, can help your teams to gauge how favorably the rebrand may be perceived by external audiences and whether the original rationale behind the rebrand needs is correct.
Be Transparent & Communicate Clearly
With any major change to a business comes a level of uncertainty. Some employees may perceive a rebrand as a sign that the company is not doing well or that their job is no longer secure. To minimize any uncertainty, be completely transparent with your employees regarding the reasons behind the rebrand, even if it is not entirely positive. It can also help to provide an outlet for people to voice their concerns on a one-to-one basis. This allows your employees to know that their voice is heard and can regenerate excitement about the rebrand and the future of the company.
The transparency can be a beneficial way of generating buy-in from the entire company. Don’t be afraid to share all the details around the market research and customer feedback that’s driving the business changes. With proper understanding of all the benefits and reasoning, your employees will be better equipped and empowered to communicate information externally.
Promote the Rebrand Externally
With complete internal buy-in and a complete messaging framework established, the rebrand is ready for the world to see. Rolling out the rebrand should be exciting! Once the launch day has arrived, there is no going back. Make sure your team is confident and that all of your external assets are prepped and ready to publish.
With so many platforms to push new content through, it can be complicated to maintain consistency between social media, emails, blog posts, and more. Utilizing a platform like HubSpot allows you to access your brand assets from one place and create social media posts, send personalized emails, and publish blog posts all in one platform. In fact, the rebrand process can be the perfect time to switch to a new CMS platform.
Social Media Posts
The more excitement you can generate about the brand, the more engaged customers will be with the grand reveal. Build that excitement with teasers on social media running up to the day of launch. Teasers don’t have to give away everything, but just enough to pique their interest. Use images and videos to offer behind-the-scenes glimpses of preparation work or sneak peaks at designs and new elements of the website or logo.
Engage with your customers on various platforms to encourage shares, comments, and followings. Don’t forget to engage with them back to keep the momentum and excitement building.
Email Announcements
Another avenue for announcing the rebrand is through email announcements. Similar to social media posts, you can use emails to generate excitement and engagement about the rebrand with current customers while also providing more detailed information.
Allowing your customers to provide feedback is a valuable way to generate engagement and trust with your brand. Through email announcements, you can provide sneak peaks or examples of changes being made and provide an outlet for them to voice their opinions.
Press Releases & Blog Posts
While email and social media posts are beneficial for driving engagement and excitement, you should also consider more concrete ways to showcase and highlight the rebrand. Press releases and blog posts can do just that. While you are generating excitement, you will also build curiosity, leading people to search for more information about the rebrand. By publishing a press release or a blog post, you will provide these users with a way to learn more information built from the messaging framework you created.
Press releases and blog posts are also beneficial for SEO purposes as it allows search engines to become aware of alterations to your brand so they can adjust search queries as needed. Search engines are smart and pick up on information quickly, so it is beneficial to ensure these posts are accessible to crawlers.
PPC Ads
If the rebrand included any changes to your brand name, it is inevitable that people will still be searching for your brand name even after the launch of the rebrand. Using your press release or blog post that discusses the changes, you can target users who are still searching for your old brand name through PPC ads to educate them about the new brand name. Overtime, you will see the search queries shift to the new brand name, but in the meantime, you can use ads to capture that audience and direct them where they need to go.
Launching a rebrand should be exciting and fun for everyone involved! While getting it right the first time can be tricky, following these helpful tips will allow you to set up a rebrand rollout for success and ensure you’re using the right messaging throughout the process.
