A few months ago, I made the decision to rebrand my own design business. I had used the same logo and general color scheme for a few years, but I had outgrown the logo and realized that I needed a specific set of colors, rather than just a general idea of “mint and peach and gray.”
I talked all about my rebrand in this blog post so I won’t rehash it all, but I wanted to make a new post to discuss a question that can seem impossible to answer:
How do you know when it’s time to rebrand your business?
I have been in the brand design world for about 9 months now, and I have discovered that there are a handful of situations that make entrepreneurs say, “It’s time to rebrand!” If you’re thinking about rebranding, maybe one of these applies to you!
You Are Pivoting
I put this one first because this is what prompted me to rebrand my own business!
When you are pivoting your business and heading in a new direction, a rebrand (or brand refresh) is a great way to signal to your audience that things are going to be looking different within your business- both the things that they can see and the things that they can’t see!
For example, I was pivoting from a hand lettering artist and shirt designer to a brand designer. That was a pretty significant pivot for my brand, so I knew it would be a great time for a rebrand. I wanted to separate myself from what my audience had come to expect from my brand for the past few years, because that was not going to be my focus anymore.
Giving my brand a new logo and solid color palette, along with defining exactly which fonts I would use for all of my marketing, signaled to my audience that things were changing. They were excited about my new look, and that made me even more excited in return!
You Are Growing
Significant growth in your business is another really great reason to do a rebrand.
One of my most recent branding clients hired me for this exact reason.
She had a DIY logo that she had made in Canva, and a color palette and logo icon that came along with her website design template.
She liked them, but she wasn’t confident in placing her DIY logo on the materials that she was sending out to her growing audience. She was also filing for an LLC, so she was seeing some major changes in her business and wanted her visuals to reflect it!
She knew that she needed something that was more polished and professional, and together we were able to make that happen.
Your Audience is Shifting
A changing audience can sometimes be caused by growth or a pivot, but sometimes you just decide to expand or change up your audience!
Perhaps you once served product-based businesses, but now you have decided to offer those same services to other service-based entrepreneurs.
Or maybe you once coached new moms, but now you coach graphic designers.
Or, maybe you once designed shirts and mugs and now you design brands. (Like me!)
Each of those changes involves an audience shift, and an audience shift is a great reason to update your branding!
You Are Embarrassed
This might be a hard pill to swallow… but if you’re embarrassed to send people to your website or business Facebook page because of your DIY or cut-and-paste branding, it’s time for a rebrand.
The reason for this is twofold.
First, let’s be real: we’ve all heard the cute little quip ‘don’t judge a book by its cover‘ but honestly, we all do. Especially when it comes to someone we will potentially be paying to help us with something! If your audience lands on your website and social media pages and sees ugly, outdated, and/or inconsistent colors, logos, and fonts… do you really think that they are going to want to pay you for the service you offer?
You can be the very best at what you do… but if your audience’s first impression of you is a bad one, it’ll be really hard to bounce back from that.
Second, are you actually going to shout your business from the rooftops if you are embarrassed to send your audience to your website or social media pages? Probably not!
And if you’re not sending them there, they probably won’t find it.
And if they don’t find it, you don’t get paid.
It’s that simple!
You Are Inconsistent
Something I talk a lot about is consistency. I am a firm believer that your brand visuals should be consistent across all platforms. But, it goes deeper than that!
I also believe that your brand’s visuals should be consistent with your brand voice, client interactions, and messaging.
If you are trying to brand yourself in a certain way but your visuals and messaging are inconsistent with that, your audience will walk away confused and not sure if they can trust you.
For example –
- you’re trying to brand yourself as a luxury service, but your logo is pixelated and your brand messaging sounds like you’re speaking to a class of kindergarteners
- you’re trying to sell yourself as a down-to-earth life and approachable life coach, but your brand voice sounds like a psychology textbook
- you describe your brand as educational, but you use industry-specific terms that your audience doesn’t understand
- you’re trying to reach a young audience, but your colors are dark and muted and your logo looks like it was made in 1997
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Consistency is so important when it comes to helping your audience learn to know, like, and trust you! If you are showing inconsistency across the board, it’s time for a rebrand.
So, which of those applies to you?
I mean, if you’ve read this far, it kind of seems like you’re looking for a reason to reach out about a rebrand. 😉
Just kidding… kind of!
In all seriousness, this is just a small sampling of reasons why it may be time for a rebrand of your business’ visuals. If you have been considering a rebrand and are looking for someone to help you through it, book a discovery call and we will see if we’re a good fit to work together!
rebeccafletcherdesigns.com 