New Year, New You! Right? Well, maybe. With 2016 right around the corner, I totally feel you on the urge to rebrand your business.
The thing with rebranding is sometimes you think you need one because you just feel like re-doing it. Maybe you saw another website that you loved the look of and wanted to emulate, or maybe you get bored easily, or maybe you never approached branding correctly in the first place. I’ve got three reasons you definitely need to consider rebranding, but one very important reason NOT to rebrand.
If you are thinking you need to rebrand because you like keeping yourself “busy” but are too scared/nervous/scatter-brained/whatever to start the important projects that will find you success – then STOP. Step back. Do not confuse being busy with being productive, okay? If it’s your fifth rebrand in two months, I have a feeling that maybe you are avoiding starting the next phase of your business. I get that fear, totally. But, at this rate, you will be rebranding until the end of time and never launch your business. Do yourself a favor and approach branding correct this one last time and make it work, make it right, and make a plan for success – then DO it. To learn more about that, check out my new e-book Branding 101: Building Your Base.
But if you still are unsure, here are three reasons to consider that rebrand.
YOU’VE NARROWED DOWN YOUR VISION
If you launched your business and developed your branding with too broad of a vision, that’s okay. Narrowing down your brand vision is a fantastic and necessary move – one that might require the rest of your branding to become more focused, too. Defining a vision statement means that you are looking to the future with your business, that you know where you are heading and have an overall “vision” or grasp on what your business will be doing years from now. This is something that requires you finally taking your business seriously and definitely deserves a round of applause.
After you are done giving yourself that pat on the back though, consider that the rest of your branding might not fulfill what your new vision is. You might’ve created just a simple brand identity when you launched, and never took the time to understand the relationship between your vision, your identity, your target audience, your voice, etc. Now would be a great time to revisit all of these moving parts that fall under that ‘branding’ umbrella and make sure they are cohesively fulfilling that overall vision.
Confused on what all these terms mean? Check out this vocab post to clear up any questions.
YOU HAVE TO BEG TO BE VALUED
Have you heard of positioning? It’s a marketing term about how you set your brand/service/product apart in the consumer’s eyes – how you make them understand the value and need for what you offer.
Quick tangent lesson: In each specific marketing campaign a ‘big business’ does, they’ll position themselves uniquely (or try to). But there’s an also an overall positioning for your entire brand, that is covered in developing your branding. Think of Chipotle and how they managed to position their overall company as the healthy fast food. They are the organic, health conscious, but still quick alternative for people. That’s fantastic! They saw an opening and positioned themselves as the answer. BUT, with recent e-coli scares, they will have to develop new marketing campaigns that are targeted at promoting the safety of their food, the process of cleaning and sterilizing stores, the care and time and dedication employees put into food safety, etc. So their overall positioning through their branding is long lasting, overarching, and ‘big picture.’ But they use smaller campaigns to sell/promote/save face that might have more specific or focused positioning.
Why does that matter? Well – if people aren’t seeing you as you want to be seen, then chances are you aren’t positioning yourself correctly. You aren’t promoting yourself as worth the value you are asking for and you aren’t targeting the right people (or anyone at all). If you are a high-end photographer, your base wedding package starts at $6200, and you average $12-15k a wedding, then you better be positioning yourself as THE BEST of the best and a worthwhile investment. You better not be positioning yourself as the 'every bride's photographer' and targeting DIY brides on DIY blogs. Do you see the disconnect? If I am DIYing my wedding am I budgeting $12,000 for a photographer? Heck. No. I’m. Not.
So – if you are begging for clients to see your value, consider a rebrand that focuses on better understanding and utilizing positioning. If every time you ask for a sale people scoff – you aren’t reaching your target audience. You aren’t positioning yourself correctly or to the correct people. You need to re-approach your branding. Want some more help with that? Check out my new e-book Branding 101: Building Your Base.
YOU ARE NOT EXCITED EVERYDAY
While I told you not to keep rebranding endlessly, I don’t want you to be unhappy either. You should be confident and enthusiastic about everything you are doing. If you are ashamed to show someone something to do with your branding – then it’s okay to re-approach.
The thing is, I am not just talking about your identity, or your website, or anything visual. Yes, you should love that too, but branding is so much more than that. If you aren’t excited everyday about putting out content that reaches your target audience, or aren’t excited about who you're targeting, or aren't excited about the social media platforms you can find them on, or anything at all in your business – then let’s start fresh.
All you need to start a business is an idea: a product, a service, a way to help someone out, etc. There is probably a million articles or posts about what to do next, but for me, it’s always been branding. Why? Because figuring out your branding, the right way, figures out all your next steps. It forces you to figure out why you want this business, what your mission is, what your vision is, who your target is, and so on. So – if you are not excited abut what you are doing, then back to the drawing board! Back to square one. Have your idea and sit down and let’s start the branding process over again and plan out squares two through one million.
There are countless reasons why you might not be excited about what you are doing – maybe you didn’t originally approach branding from YOUR perspective, but instead wanted to emulate some existing company or brand (I see this, OFTEN). That’s okay, you’ve spent some time seeing what didn’t work for you, which will make your rebrand even easier, because we know what to avoid.
If 2016 is the year of the last legit, official, serious rebrand and serious launch of your business, then check out Building Your Base, my new e-book that is currently in pre-sale. If you think my blog posts are packed with information, then wait until you see this e-book!
Being as this is the last official post on 2016 – let me also take a moment and say THANK YOU. Thank you for this year – it has been amazing and overwhelming and scary and exciting all at the same time. I can’t believe the change in my life, via this blog and business, in 2015. I am so honored that you take the time to read these posts and be a part of my life. 2016 is already shaping up to be one for the books, y’all. I can’t wait to see you on the other side!
Hi! I’m Kaitlyn!
I believe that you can create a life and business you love by listening to your own inner guidance system. I think there's plenty of strategies + hacks to learn and a ton of “how to” content you can consume but ultimately you are your best guide, the best guru, the best compass, and the best source of inspiration! I’m here to help you learn to trust that voice inside, step into your incredible power, and create YOUR dream business + life.
Let’s work together!