PR ByIntention®

By April Neill, CEO/Founder April Neill Public Relations

As a small business owner, your brand image is important and if you’re thinking of reinventing your brand –its identity and personality —it’s important to first ask yourself why you’re doing it.  Do you have specific reasons and goals for giving your brand an overhaul? Rebranding may involve significant changes to your logo, your website, and your social media presence as well as your marketing and public relations strategies. Consider the following key points before rebranding.

1. Review your existing brand. What are you saying about yourself as a business? What promises does your brand make and to whom? Focusing on your brand’s attributes and values and how your stakeholders perceive your brand will help you to develop new strategies to reach new customers and to ensure your message resonates with your current customer base.
2. Discover your “Why?” What can you achieve by rebranding? What do you want your customer to think or know about you and how will you deliver their highest values and needs? Build your rebrand with a direction in mind and with the customer experience in mind.
3. Evaluate brand communications and factors that make up your brand. A brand is the sum total of perceptions that leap into a person’s head when your brand name is mentioned, so look beyond print collateral, logo, and signage and perform a thorough audit of all your brand communications and channels.
4. Involve and Evolve your Brand’s Mission. As you consider how your company mission lives within your brand, it’s important to consider how it will exist in a rebrand. What makes your brand uniquely and wonderfully you and how can its core evolve to reflect your new strategy?
5. Look internally and externally for buy-in. With branding and rebranding, it’s important to consider how your brand lives internally and externally. What do your employees think about your brand? What does the public think about your brand? As you create new perceptions of your brand, it’s important to consider how your stakeholders feel and the promises that you will make with your rebrand. When planning your rebranding strategy, it’s important to consider the impact a rebrand will make on all your stakeholders and to get their buy-in.
6. Utilize Social Media. When you release your new brand into the social media “wild” it’s important to monitor social media posts and respond when appropriate. People tend to resist change, so be ready for some resistance. Remember that taste is subjective and if you do get resistance, this is your chance to connect, interact, and engage with your audience.
7. Synchronize, and Be Consistent. When taking on a rebranding initiative, do it whole-heartedly. It’s important to synchronize your rebrand launch across multiple platforms and to ensure that you have an integrated visual communications strategy for your new brand. The last thing you want to do is to rebrand on one platform, and have your old brand logo on your other platforms. It will make you look disorganized. Remember, consistency is key so take the time and use your resources to plan a synchronized launch.
8. Utilize Publicity in your rebranding launch. By all means, construct a press release to announce your new brand. Launching a rebranding PR campaign can help you multiply your reach and results quickly and if submitted to online news services, boost your ranking on search engines.

April Neill Public Relations is passionate about working with small businesses to increase their brand awareness and help them find their voice. We offer a complimentary 30-minute in-person or phone consultation. Email AprilNeill@gmail.com to make your appointment today or call (312) 772-3832 for more information. Visit us online at AprilNeillPR.com. Follow ANPR on Facebook at Facebook.com/AprilNeillPR.