The Art of Reinvention: Branding for Progress

It takes a lot of effort to build a successful career from scratch. However, even with the best of will and hard work, prosperity is not always guaranteed. Sometimes, things will just go south and you will have to either reinvent yourself or completely disappear from the business scene. Cutting losses in never an easy task, especially when it is hours and hours of hard work that you now need to relinquish. Still, like it or not – this might be the only way out.

Unsurprisingly, statistics prove that you’re not alone in this. Namely, in one of our previous articles, we concluded that approximately 15-20% of startups pivot from their original business plan at the very beginning. This time, however, in order not to repeat the same mistakes twice, you need to retake each and every step properly.

Nostalgia Will Take You Nowhere, Build a Solid Rebranding Strategy Instead

Even though tradition can be a powerful influence on your decision making, there is a reason why things simply didn’t work out last time. The sooner you figure out what went wrong, the better. In order to persevere in the hostile business world, you need to stay relevant. After all, this is what rebranding and reinventing is all about.

Do a Thorough Market Research

Before you even start building your rebranding strategy, always ask yourself who you are planning to address  and in what way. In other words, you need to have a clear picture of what your average customer looks like. One of the key factors determining the success of your reinvention plan is whether your market research is properly conducted or not. This, of course, revolves around audience research, product research, brand analysis, psychological profiling, customer satisfaction research and database research. Alternatively, if you are planning to expand to a new market, don’t forget to include your new target audiences in the research, as well.

These types of market analysis usually include some basic, in-house practices, such as analyzing your customers’ age, preferences, location, occupation, as well as reasons why they are interested in your products or services. However, in order to make this research more effective, you could always use some advanced software pieces, such as Google Insights Databoard that offers an interesting overview of how people browse products and make a purchase, or MyBestSegments that allows businesses to figure out an area’s demographic information and lifestyle habits. Tools like Loop11, on the other hand, help you test basically any webpage, even your competitors’ websites.

Always Have a Plan that Works

This should go without saying, but without a clearly defined reinvention strategy, this entire endeavor might become just another slippery slope for you. Precisely because of this, you should construct a plan consisting of immediate steps that need to be taken, as well as your long term goals and some milestones that you will meet in between. After all, effective rebranding always relies on a certain form of strategy that will keep everyone focused as the project advances. With all of this done, you will probably already be in better position than you were ever before.

Establish and Promote your Brand Identity

Recently, some researchers studied the importance of corporate branding in the field of banking sector. According to the statistics they gathered, over 69% of people asked to define the difference between various banks were unable to do that. This happened for a pretty simple reason: even though each bank employs completely different visual means, slogans, and policies, they are all trying hard to convey the same image of a perfectly organized system, which usually suppresses their uniqueness.

Even though this example doesn’t directly correlate to your small business or rebranding strategy, it clearly proves that being unique is what brings success to your brand. So, this is actually the part of your rebranding strategy where you develop the elements that will communicate your brand. Put simply – building a solid brand identity is the reflection of everything your company and your brand stand for. Some of the aspects you need to always keep in mind are:

If you Failed at Choosing your Company Name, Now it’s Time to Change it

Did you know that Google was once called BackRub, while Nike was formerly known as Blue Ribbon Sports? So, if some of the most famous world’s conglomerates changed their name in order to generate more revenue, it’s time for you to do the same as well. However, this is definitely not something that should be done overnight. Choosing an effective name for your company is a long process that requires a lot of research and strategizing. Always keep in mind that the brand name you go for needs to be clear, easily memorable, recognizable and, most importantly, have a positive connotation.

A logo can be simply defined as the visual portrayal of your company’s policy. In order to be effective, your logo needs to be symbolic, meaningful to your target audience and powerful enough to differentiate you from competitors. Most importantly, it needs to complement your brand name. However, once you create your perfect design, stick to its specific design concept, style or theme. Just take an example of Coca-Cola or Pepsi that revamped their logos for decades and yet, they’ve managed to maintain their original identity and authority.

Colors can play an integral role in brand recognition and loyalty. They usually evoke an emotional response in your consumers, so you need to choose them wisely. Using natural nuances like green or brown may be more effective and go along with your brand’s attitude and ethos. If you want to present your brand as an exciting, bold, and youthful, you should go with a red palette. Blue is a color of choice when giving your brand an aura of dependability and trust, while yellow (considered to be the ‘happiest color’) is most often associated with optimism, clarity, and warmth.

Investing in Online Presence Management

Today, everything happens online. With the growth of the digital village, online channels have become the place where your brand starts to grow and develop. Most importantly, it’s the place where a prospective client, customer or an employee will turn to learn more about your company. For this reason, it could be said that online presence represents the backbone of any modern business, regardless of its size. We’ve already discussed this topic from different points of view, but here are some basic things you need to pay attention to:

• fast, comprehensive, appealing and user-friendly website that will attract new customers
• mobile conversion optimization to generate more mobile traffic successfully
• short, easily memorable and effective domain name, like .ME for personalized approach
• creating engaging content and sharing it via online channels.

Conclusions

Finally, there is no reason for you to avoid reinvention. What can be seen from the previous examples is that it is a completely logical and inevitable process caused by your company growth. After all, none of your initial plans or strategies were carved in stone. They simply need to be changed and adapted as the need arises.