That, is the digital age question.

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Re-branding can be a sensitive subject, especially for founders and business owners who have been in their speciality a long time. Your business is your baby, you’ve nurtured and nourished it, and watched it grow. 

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What’s even harder, is if you find it hard to relinquish control. It’s understandable, given that you raised your business, you’re the one who knows it best. 

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How digital marketing impacts your branding

However, as the digital age develops, and at such a quick rate, so do your customers’ expectations. Let’s take TikTok; the majority of our minds were already at an all-time-low attention span before we became accustomed to the video app’s interface. And if you’ve never used it before, then imagine scrolling through viral-worthy videos every 7 seconds, where endless entertainment is readily available. It’s addictive, and it’s designed for us to scroll with the utmost ease. Less faffing = more of what we want. 

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And as our attention-spans have shortened, our expectations for more have increased. More content, more product, and everything more adapted to us. Your website has to have the easiest process flow for us to get from A to B, your product has to arrive by the next day, your service has to be instant.

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As customers, we even have much more control over your advertising. Current marketing strategies revolve around connecting with the customer on extremely personable levels. As customers we want relatable, honest, humanity these days. That’s what sells now. And with such instant feedback across social media marketing, we decide whether your advert works or not. We decide whether it makes you any money or not.

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So, did any of that give you reason to question if you're built to succeed in this new age?

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A brand that evolves

Some companies do it amazingly. They allow their brand to evolve, while still utilising their core brand messaging to connect with what today’s marketing strategy or e-commerce platform demands. And it isn’t just because they have big budgets because they’re big companies — take Debenhams; they failed to adapt their brand and user experience to work with today’s customer and market. So did TopShop. 

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You don’t need big money to make sure your business survives our modern world. You just need to be able to accept that sometimes things have to change, and release a little of that control over your business. And of course, some solid brand messaging.

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Re-branding isn’t as scary as it sounds. A good designer won't just throw out everything you’ve been building with so far and re-invent your wheel. A good designer knows that your customer base, one of probably many years, knows you and what you look like. They know that your customer knows what you feel like. To your customer, you feel like coming home everyday, or returning to the same hotel every year. You’re consistent, you’re trusted, and that’s why they’ve stayed loyal to you. A good designer uses that to refine who you are, ready for both you and your customers’ next steps.

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However, you also have a whole new generation to tap in to. Say hello to Gen-Z. Now, unless your product or service is specifically for over 60’s, like a care home, you have to be nice with Gen-Z. Even if you’re not selling to them, you can utilise their marketing preferences to build your brand engagement. You are a care home? Great, show them wholesome content of your residents and you’ll probably go viral. 

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If you’re wondering why that matters, then the basics of brand awareness is your answer. Brand awareness is people knowing who you are. The more people know you, the better positioned you are against your competition. It’s not always just about how your product compares, but how you make the audience feel, what they know you for. 

 

Does your customer see you?

Your un-tapped source doesn't have to be the next generation, either. There’s other people already within your target audience that haven’t heard of you.

 

Take the marketing theory of Cold Traffic:

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Hot traffic: customers who know you and buy from you. They trust you, and they trust your product or service. This is where you currently make your money.

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Warm traffic: People who know of you. They’ve seen your brand or your product, but haven’t yet taken the plunge of purchasing; they need a little persuasion.

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Cold traffic: These people have no idea you exist. 

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So, a good re-brand builds on who you are at the core, on your messaging and probably even utilises your current visual assets to inform new ideas = keeping your hot traffic happy. Yet, it updates how you look, and how you express your brand’s message, to ensure that you’re ready for your cold traffic. How? Re-freshing your aesthetic, modernising it, evaluating how or even if you have any consistency across your current brand assets, and then ensuring that you do going forwards. Making sure that all of these align with your brand’s tone and voice so that you can also express your brand through the intangibles; emotion. Why? Because to succeed in today’s marketing, before you even consider paying for ads, you have to ensure your foundation is ready to welcome that cold traffic when they see you. You’ve got to look user friendly, 2022-and-beyond friendly, and easy on the eye.

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In most cases, re-brands are vital for businesses who have no clarity around what they look like. Whether or not you have a current steady customer base, your desire is to grow past that. Your traditional ways of marketing and connecting with new audiences isn’t going to do that for you, so you have to do some re-decorating. However, if you’re going to re-paint the living room and freshen up the kitchen, then the bathroom starts to look out of place, right?

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It's not just a new logo that you need

So, coming back to brand consistency, we look at your business as a whole. These days as customers we care about the experience you give us. Imagine your brand’s message has me hooked, but when I head to your website the user experience in its current state doesn’t align with the advert you just caught me with. My trust in you has gone; the advert was a sales tactic after-all. You should want your customer to know who you are at every opportunity that they see you.

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Your brand in its visual identity is your logo, your colour themes, the fonts you write in and the graphics you use. Your brand as a whole is more than that and your website speaks for your brand just as much as your product. 

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A re-brand isn’t just giving you a shiny new logo, because that’s probably the least of the matter to your customer. A re-brand is a full re-callibration of the dreams you fulfil for your customer, and how you do that. It's encompassing them in your brand's message and the emotions it evokes in them. A re-brand is more customers, and more sales.

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So, now you want to re-brand?

If you’re looking for one of those ‘good designers’ we mentioned earlier in this blog, get in touch with us here to discuss how we can help you re-define your brand reach those new milestones.