Rebranding? Here's Everything Your Designer Needs From You.
Video version of this blog post available here.
So it’s time to rebrand, eh?
Like all decisions, the decision to rebrand is an emotional one. You could be frustrated that your brand doesn’t reflect the quality of your product, feeling like your visual identity doesn’t connect with your target audience, or just ready to give the brand the face-lift that it needs.
Well, let me give you a little tip: the key to a successful rebrand is strategy. So before you jump into sketches and color palettes (whether it is you or your designer), it is crucial that you layout a good foundation for yourself.
What were the downfalls of the current brand? And how will the new brand benefit the customer?
It is questions like these (above) that need to be discussed, pondered, and answered thoroughly as a rebrand with out strategy is simply a redesign.
A process where you quickly and excitedly revamp the brand - switching over all your current assets, buying all new brand materials, getting customers familiar with the newness - leads you to realize in 6 - 12 months that it all needs to be re-thought again… This is not what you want.
What you want is a brand that:
Appeals your audience
Clearly articulates how you solve their problems
Accurately represents your brand’s uniqueness and individual personality (yes, your brand should have it’s own personality!)
Allows for growth, evolution, and continuous improvements over time
So how do you get this?
Well this brings us back to strategy. Before any sketch is drawn, any color is swatched, or any type is selected - there is research to be done and questions to be answered…specifically the list of questions below!
Now, while Fortune 500 companies can afford to hire large teams and agencies to work through this process with (or for) them, this is for the small businesses that have to do most of their projects in-house.
(I am essentially giving you the handbook on how to be your own brand strategist, so all you need is a graphic designer. And yes, I potentially just saved you a few thousand dollars in the matter of a blog post ...anyways, back to your regularly scheduled programming!)
While you can never know TOO much about the landscape of your brand versus the market and your audience, the following list will act as a starting point - getting you uber prepared for when you finally sit down with a designer.
Here is the process broken down into 3 steps; each with their own set of questions - and, periodically, a bit more context.
Step 1 - Do a Brand Audit
Like the common saying, “What we track, we improve” - what we reflect on, we are sure to make better moving forward.
First, you need to outline what problems you are experiencing. This should explain your motives to rebrand and will give your designer a good understanding of “what not to do” and what needs to be solved.
Secondly, when defining your goals, be sure to make them measurable. This will keep your designer focused on the task at hand - rather than getting wrapped up in the cool trends on design/portfolio sites like Behance and Dribble. Trust me - it’s tempting to be trendy...but what’s trendy is not what’s fitting for most businesses!
The Problem
What do you like and dislike about the current brand?
What roadblocks have you been facing with this brand?
What lessons have you learned working under this brand?
Objectives/Goals
What are your short-term and long-term goals for the brand?
How does this rebranding benefit the customer?
Step 2 - Define Your Brand’s Positioning
For better or for worse, the success of your rebrand is directly dependent on your understanding of the market - and likewise your ability to position yourself.
With positioning you (attempt to) create the audience’s perception of your brand versus the competition. The goal: to reduce or eliminate the logic for your audience to choose any brand but your own.
The key here, as said by brand expert, Marty Neumeier, is radical differentiation. He calls this a brand’s “zag”. The mentality: “when everybody zigs, ZAG!”
Ideally - after all these questions, you should be able to complete this sentence: Our brand is the only _______ that _______.
Target Audience
Who is your target audience? (Define Age, Gender, Income, Location, Education, etc.)
What are their pain points and problems?
What are their Interests/Hobbies/Goals and Aspirations?
How to Go One Step Further:
Create 2-3 user personas representing your core focus groups - each with their own answers to the above questions.
It will also be good to note which personas you are currently targeting and which will be new. You can additionally provide insights on what you know to be true about current audiences.
Remember:
Rebranding does not mean finding a “new brand;”
it’s about articulating the true identity of your brand with more clarity.
Competitor Analysis
Who are your direct and indirect competitors?
What does each brand stand for?
What makes you different and/or better than the competitors?
What shapes, symbols, and colors are most common in your industry?
Where/how do your differences align with a gap in the market?
For Context:
The point of a competitor analysis is to identify gaps in the market that your brand can authentically fit into. Please stay away from squeezing your brand into a gap just for the sake of trying to win customers - it never ends up working in the long-run!
For example, say you run a full-service home cleaning company in Frederick, Maryland and notice a gap in the market for an “eco-friendly and sustainable” brand. It may be tempting to try to market yourself as the solution, but if 80% of your cleaners contain harsh chemicals, this is not where you can position your brand.
In this section, focus on what genuinely makes your brand different. Just like every human as their own unique fingerprint, so does every brand. Here is where you define those differences, and strategically position them as your strengths.
How to Go One Step Further:
On top of the answers to the above questions, it would be helpful for you to provide examples of your competitors logos, graphic assets, and marketing material.
Message, Vision, and Voice
What is your “why?”
Having trouble with that? Imagine in 10 years the brand has taken off, and you’ve had the ability to bring on many more features/products to solve more of your audience’s problems - what will the through-line be that keeps everything consistent? (This should essentially define your mission.)
What do you see the brand achieving in 5, 10, 20 years?
If your brand was a person, how would you describe their personality?
How would you define the brand’s vocabulary, voice, or tone?
Not sure? Try this: If the brand was a celebrity, who would it be? (For example, Lady Gaga speaks very differently than Denzel Washington…)
Step 3 - Outline Your Brand Delivery
Not only does a great rebrand take analyzing the past, it requires a good forethought of the future. For example, taking into account where your logo will appear most - whether it be on printed products, or in the digital space, or on merchandise - will very much determine how your logo should be designed.
It also is helpful to know how the rebrand will be carried out in the public space.
The more you know at the start can put you wildly ahead of the game for later on. Say you want to run a marketing campaign that focused on the rebrand, your designer knows this at the start, they will know to document the process for you.
Deliverables
What brand assets will you need? Physical and digital.
Common printed needs: Business Cards, Letterhead, Stickers
Common digital needs: Logo Animation, Web Graphics, Brand book
What marketing efforts will follow the rebrand? And will you need new materials?
Common marketing needs: Pitch decks, Brochures, One-sheets, and Trade Show Booths.
How to Go One Step Further:
On top of your listed needs, find out the specs for each one. This will save you and your designer precious time at the end of the design process - so your designer doesn’t have to wait for you to scramble it all together, and you don’t have to wait for the final product!
And that’s a wrap!
Once you have answered everything above, you my friend will be ready for your designer. For ease of answering these questions, I’ve made a Google doc of only the questions. To download that, make a copy of my Google doc version here.
Have some questions regarding this list? Shoot me a message and I will be happy to help! Don’t have a designer yet? Tell me about your rebrand. You should be quite prepared!