Rebranding, 3 simple steps to rebrand yourself or your business

Facts about branding

• Your brand is more than a logo.
• It's more than your website, or your name.
• Branding is how your staff answer phones and email.
• Branding is the soap you put in your customer bathrooms.
• Branding is even the thickness of toilet paper for those bathrooms.
• ‍It's every detail.

The title of this blog "Rebranding, 3 simple steps to rebrand yourself or your business" makes it sound so simple, like you could go to your cupboard in the morning and choose exactly what to wear easily.

In knowing all this, and realising that there's a lot of unanswered questions, you might be lost and wondering "What should I do first? I'm not an expert..." But, here's the thing, deep down you know the answers, you just need a branding consultant to help ask the right questions.

In step 1: we'll define your brand positioning and strategy. Making you think about the market, get you researching your audience. It's arguably the most important step. Don't just make assumptions on what customers need, actually talk to them. It will reap the rewards.

Step 2 looks at the customer experience and how to make small, seemingly insignificant improvements. But this is where the gold is!!

Step 3 analyses and enhance your brands visual and verbal communication. This is all the customer facing parts - the brand, social media, website etc. Answering the question of whether all the other steps are implemented.

Finally, you can take action by identifying your target audience, creating a consistent brand experience, and developing a strong visual identity.

What's the difference between personal and corporate brand

This article doesn't pit a personal brand against a corporate brand, as most brands begin their lives embodying one person's vision. But we will guide you through how to rebrand yourself or your company.

In a lot of instances, a personal vision guides the corporate brand and gives others a path to tread. It's also how we find staff that share our personal aspirations and bring new ideas into the business. This feeds growth!

All your decisions affect how you're perceived by potential customers. Positive reinforcement of your brand is vital for returning customers. They'll expect the same great experience each time they engage with you.

I like to think a new brand is a bit like an avocado. It has layers — a seed that holds all the information for growth (brand positioning). Delicious flesh that customers return for again and again (brand experience) And skin that holds it together (brand appearance).

You need to carefully think about each step to ensure you connect everything up. Because consistency is king!

So, before you redesign your website, change your socials and bin your old business cards, walk through these steps.

Step 1 – Establishing your brand's position

The DNA of your brand — it's your mission, your vision, your values. It's how you position yourself. Your story! When you peel back all the visual identity, you need a strategy to back it up. Your brand DNA gets your brand out of bed and puts on some sparkly thongs to go to the postbox.

Questions to solve your brand's market position

• What problems are you solving?
• How do you want to make your customers feel?
• Why do they come back for more?
• Can you interview three customers to understand why they use your product or service? What are their beliefs? Where do they live? What's their income? What hobbies and interests do they have
• How do you want your customers to perceive your brand?
• Are they able to explain to friends what you do?
• How would you like your customers to describe what you do? What words do they use to describe your brand?
• What is your vision? Why are you in business?
• Who's your competition? What sets you apart?

These questions give you the ability to engage your customers. Involve them in the whole rebranding process. 

Allowing them to be part of the conversation builds excitement. It helps transition them along with you and ensures they can celebrate your achievement. It turns the whole thing into a conversation and keeps building that trust.

While your brand changes, they'll see things are still the same. You might even score some more loyalty points with them.

There's also an incredible opportunity to embrace your past failures, use them as learning opportunities and come out the other side. It's your space to grow and learn.

If you want to go the extra mile, you can challenge the accepted industry norms. Are there things you believe that can be done differently that no one expects – this can be a great way to set you apart.

Before we jump ahead, it can be a powerful tool to find your brand personality, not to hold back and fight for what you believe in to make a positive change in the world.

Hot tip – Grab the emotional branding download

You might have glossed over "how do you want to make your customers feel?", but it's near the top of my list for a good reason. When you can tune into how they feel, your storytelling shifts, your tone of voice becomes more empathetic. You match them where they are at emotionally.

When you appreciate how they feel, you begin to build connections to customers. You begin building trust, and that... is essential.

There's no hard sell from me, but for the price of your email address, you'll get access to the Emotional Branding Download.

Connect with customers and grab the Emotional Branding Download.

Step 2 – Enhancing your brand's customer experience

You need to think about the experience customers have when they interact with your brand. It doesn't matter if you sell online or have a physical shop. You need to break down each step in a customer's journey.

Questions to uncover the brand experience you want to give people

• Do you or your customers struggle with any parts of the customer journey? Are they confused? Are there delays?
• Do you need to alter your processes to improve the brand experience?
• How are complaints handled? Is it consistently for the same product/service?
• Can you streamline your internal services/improve products? 
• Why do customers choose you? Do they come back?
• How do customers feel when they interact with your brand? What emotions do you want customers to feel?
• Are customer touchpoints consistent? Can they be improved?

If any part of your customer experience isn't delighting them. In that case, you won't be creating as many super fans as you could be.

You can use these questions to audit your existing website, social media presence and anything else your brand touches to check that the messages are all the same and that each interaction is consistent.

Step 3 – Improving your brand appearance

The final step is to analyse how you communicate – visually, verbally and in writing. 

Questions you need to ask about your visual branding

• How would you describe your brand voice? Is it packed with personality? Does it have more balls than a ball pit?
• Do you feel proud of your visuals/brand voice? Why?
• Are your visuals and brand voice consistent across all your brand touchpoints? What can be improved?
• How can you make the visual identity/brand voice consistent?
• Do customers respond to visuals/brand voice? Make a note of comments (good and bad).
• How do you want your brand to be described by customers?
• What visual identity assets do you have? Logos, fonts, colour palettes, graphic elements, icons, patterns, photography styles, illustrations, etc.
• What marketing assets do you have and use? This is anything to promote your brand — website, brochures, social media templates, email marketing templates, adverts, business cards, email signatures, etc.
• Are there any visual/marketing assets you wish you had?
• What visual identity/marketing assets do you need to move the brand forward?

What to do next

A successful brand merges messaging, communication and research with graphic design. 

Without clarity on your positioning, you won't understand who you are targeting and giving a brand experience.

Once you are clear on each step, you can devise a plan for evolving and improving.

Action steps to take:

• Who is your target audience? What do they need?
• What will your brand experience look like?
• Do you need to invest in, create or organise new processes to keep the experience consistent?
• How will your brand voice sound? Pick out words and phrases you would like to use. Make a list of all the phrases to exclude, too.
• Will you create your voice and tone? Side note: you always have the same voice, but the tone is different to reflect the emotional states of the audience.
• What will your visuals look like? Consider building a mood board on Pinterest — logos you like, colours, typography, photography, and other visual elements to inspire your brand. Consider how they will make customers feel and your brand's goals.
• How will you create a consistent visual identity? Will you create your own visual identity? Will you hire a graphic designer to help? 
• How to rebrand yourself: What visuals and marketing collateral do you need to develop or refresh? Create a list of all the items you use to speak to your target audience.
• Make a rough timeline to plan the launch. Consider how long it may take to recreate marketing campaigns, update the website, and how long it takes to print things. Give yourselves a generous amount of wiggle room to ensure everything is ready. Nobody likes egg on their face.

A summary of the rebranding process

I'd highly recommend reaching out to professionals for guidance on any areas you are stuck on – the clearer your thoughts on the direction – the better the results! A creative team is only as good as the research. So get all your ideas out of your head onto paper.

If you can, follow the steps above. Outline your brand position. Create the experience you want to give customers and think about what your brand should look like. You'll be able to have candid conversations with brand strategists and designers to help you flesh and turn your ideas into something truly unique.

Harvard Business Review created a great post about Reinventing your Personal Brand that's worth reading, too.

My other blog posts will help you dive deeper into your journey, and there's also the Level Up Podcast that you should plug into.

If you need help with branding, you can reach out on our contact page and either book a call or fill in my bodacious form if video calls aren't your thing.