Revitalize Your Brand: A Comprehensive Guide to Driving Conversions through Rebranding

Intro

Rebranding represents a prime opportunity to leverage the rebranding process to your advantage; by converting more web traffic flowing towards your business.

So, what is rebranding, and why can it have such a powerful effect on your ability to drive conversions?

Rebranding is the refreshing or reinventing of your brand's image, identity, and messaging as a way of staying relevant in your market. It often unlocks a new demographic, enabling you to convert more customers.

To execute a rebrand successfully for the long-term health of your company, you need to create a brand revitalisation strategy, a step by step process for repositioning your business.

Source: https://www.designrush.com/agency/logo-branding/trends/rebranding-agency

The Anatomy of a Successful Rebrand

When you are embarking on the brand revitalisation process, start by defining your brand identity.

A brand identity consists of your core corporate values, the mission of your brand, a coherent narrative for where your brand originated from, and the vision you have for where your brand is going in the future. Defining this is key to a successful rebrand.

Another key pillar of a successful rebrand is a thorough understanding of your target audience. You need to know who these people are - including their average age, gender, location, buying behaviour and even political leanings, depending on the nature of your market.

The rebrand must speak directly to the needs and desires of your audience. Otherwise, your rebrand may fail to engage with them, or even run the risk of alienating them.

Of course, no two rebrands are the same, and the range and scale of your changes are dependent on the market you are positioning yourself in.

For instance, you may need to make visual changes - such as redesigning your logo to reflect the evolving nature of your brand, updating your colour schemes, typography, and visual elements to reflect your new brand values or market positioning.

Another key way to overhaul your brand as a way of driving increased conversions is to revamp your online presence.

This could include updating the design and improving the user experience of your website, growing an audience on social media by creating content that aligns with your new brand identity and engaging with your new, wider target audience.

It could also mean implementing effective SEO strategies to improve your visibility online and search engine ranking.

To generate ideas for your rebranding strategy, observe the approach world-leading branding agencies have created in the past, and how they overcame the same rebranding challenges you face for their clients.

For example, Old Spice once struggled for market share, being perceived by younger consumers as no longer relevant. To reposition itself as a fashionable brand, Old Spice created a series of comical commercials, featuring “Old Spice Guy”.

These bold adverts lead to viral success and a dramatic increase in sales, brand engagement and a larger slice of the younger market demographic (without alienating its older customers).

Another example of a major brand which drastically increased customer conversions through a rebrand is Dunkin’ (previously called Dunkin’ Donuts).

Source: https://news.dunkindonuts.com/news/releases-20180925

Wanting to broaden its appeal, Dunkin’ Donuts expanded beyond the donut market. This meant dropping half the name to reflect its broader menu, and modernised the logo and in-store design.

The result was a considerable increase in sales and customer traffic and a widely positive reaction from both new and existing customers.

Understanding Your Audience

The most crucial element of a successful rebranding campaign is to understand your audience - both existing and potential customers.

Market research enables you to access the psyche of your target audience. By developing a comprehensive understanding of their tastes and preferences, you can tailor your brand message to speak directly to their needs, aspirations, and pain points.

This is a marketing trick pulled off by every successful brand - to make consumers feel as if you are entering the conversation already happening inside their heads - thereby establishing long-lasting customer relationships.

With a clear understanding of what resonates with your target demographic, you can allocate resources where they can make the biggest impact, optimising your advertising and increasing the impact of your rebranding campaign.

Once you have conducted detailed market research and studied relevant case studies, it is time to create your rebranding strategy.

To begin with, you need to align your brand values with your target market, which is crucial if you want to establish a stronger emotional connection with your customers.

You will then need to determine which elements of your current brand identity need to be retained for brand continuity and which aspects could do with a refresh to better align with your new positioning.

You also need to create a coherent narrative that communicates your brand's journey, values, and vision of the future. Craft a story that resonates emotionally with your customers, which will help them to feel connected to the brand on a personal level.

Aligning Your Brand with Business Goals

Of course, when you are rebranding, you must not lose sight of the ultimate goal - which is to drive additional customers towards your business.

To gauge the true impact of your rebranding, it is useful to set key performance indicators that directly align with your business goal. These KPIs will range from metrics like website traffic and conversion rates to more subjective measures like brand awareness.

Designing for Conversion

One major aspect of rebranding is the aesthetic and visual elements of your brand identity, which are often the first touch point between your business and the consumer.

Colours have a scientifically proven psychological effect on human moods and emotions. A deep red, for example, is often subconsciously associated with anger and aggression, while a light blue or green is associated with peace and the natural world.

Furthermore, you should maintain visual consistency across all of your branding - including the logo, colours, fonts, and imagery - and aim for simple and clear visual branding.

A clutter-free design not only enhances visual appeal but also aids in conveying your brand message effectively. The last thing you want is to confuse your target audience with a messy aesthetic.

Messaging Matters: Communicating Value Propositions

You need to craft compelling brand messages that resonate with your audience's needs, which of course requires you to understand their desires, challenges, and aspirations.

In order to find the right message, you need to start by pinpointing your customers' most sensitive pain points and desires. You will then be able to position your brand as the antidote to that pain or the provider of the pleasure your customers seek.

By doing this, you are integrating persuasive storytelling into your rebranding narrative - which enhances the emotional connection between you and your customers.

You should consider developing a narrative that goes beyond product features, weaving in elements of your brand's journey, core values, and impact in the marketplace.

Rolling Out the Rebrand: Execution Strategies

With the planning stage completed, it’s time for the exciting part - rolling out your rebrand.

This usually means updating your digital assets and marketing materials first, and then gradually introducing the changes over the course of weeks or months to avoid overwhelming your customers and stakeholders.

Here are some execution strategies for rolling out your rebrand:

Measuring Success: Metrics for Conversion Evaluation

Once your rebrand is in motion, is it vital that you track the success of the campaign. This should be measured as KPIs for the business goals you wanted to hit.

These include metrics like website traffic, social media engagement, customer sentiment, and conversion rates.

Source: https://www.abtasty.com/blog/key-performance-indicator/

Once your rebrand has been implemented successfully, you should regularly analyse the data gathered from your identified KPIs. Utilise tools like Google Analytics, social media analytics, and customer feedback surveys to keep track of your progress.

Overcoming Challenges in the Rebranding Journey

There are several common pitfalls which your brand could encounter during a rebrand, including losing clarity over your brand identity, alienating your existing customers and facing internal resistance from stakeholders.

To navigate these problems, you should be as transparent in your communication with customers, employees and stakeholders as possible. Explain the reason behind the rebrand, the benefits it should provide and the strategic vision you have.

This may mean including key stakeholders in the rebranding process. Their input and buy-in are crucial for a successful transition, and should be respected every step of the way. Address their inevitable concerns, take their feedback on board, and make them feel like a core component of the transformation.

Conclusion: Sustaining Conversion Momentum

In conclusion, rebranding your company can be a powerful way to drive additional conversions and acquire a larger portion of market share within your industry. It is a way of shoring up the achievements of the past while moving forward with the times, staying relevant in a fast-moving world.

As long as you study the merits and limitations of your existing brand thoroughly, understand why they connect with a certain demographic and research the target market you are repositioning towards, you will have every chance of implementing a rebrand which results in more customer conversions.