Rebranding is a common practice that many businesses will undergo at some point (even multiple times). Your brand is how you reach customers, tell your story, and market your products or services. As such a powerful tool, it’s essential to ensure your brand is as relevant as ever. And if it’s not, well, it might be time to rebrand!

Now, a rebrand doesn’t necessarily mean a complete overhaul of your business from top to bottom, with every aspect of your current business being thrown out the window and replaced with shiny new, unfamiliar things.

A rebrand can also be just a subtle update to your brand, to help clarify your message or better align your position within the market. It might not even be noticeable with your customers. The benefits, however, can be dramatic, with successfully and carefully considered rebrands helping businesses to evolve, continue growing, and reach more customers.

So when do you know?

01/ YOU’VE OUTGROWN YOUR CURRENT BRANDING

It doesn’t always make sense to invest a lot of money into the brand identity of your business right from the beginning. For those who can — that’s great! But for everyone else, it probably isn’t in the budget until a little later. If you’re managing a business with a DIY logo, you’ll probably reach a point where your growth is feeling limited by the quality of your branding.

You might even have outgrown something at the core of your brand — your goals, or brand statement. If your business has gone in a direction that’s different than what it was when you started out, your brand will need to be updated to reflect your new position. When it’s time to move on from an old image, a rebrand will help freshen your business’s perception and give you room to continue growing.

02/ YOUR BRAND ISN’T STANDING OUT

One of the things your brand should do is demonstrate how your business is unique. If it isn’t making it clear how your business offers something different than other similar businesses, than your brand isn’t doing its job well enough.

If your brand looks no different from your competition, then it makes it that much harder to gain new customers and make a strong impression. It’s so easy to fall into a trap of wanting to imitate more established brands, especially at the early stages of building your business. You see what’s working for them and want to follow their lead.

But if you’re only copying other businesses, you’ll never be able to build your own success. Focus on what makes your business special, and make sure your your branding shows it.

03/ YOU WANT TO EXPAND YOUR CLIENT BASE

If you’re not getting the kind of clients or customers you want, a change to your brand can help shift the perception of your business in the right direction. Maybe you want to position your business as a more premium brand and attract clients with bigger budgets, or you want to reach a younger demographic than what your brand is currently bringing in.

Your brand is what establishes expectations for your audience. If you want to change the kind of people you’re attracting, take the time to define your ideal client and consider what you can change about your branding to reach them.

04/ YOUR LOGO, COLORS, AND TYPOGRAPHY LOOK OUTDATED

Have you ever felt a little embarrassed about handing out a business card, or sending a potential client to your website? Your brand is the public face of your business, and you don’t want it to look out-of-touch. If your brand isn’t getting enough attention, doesn’t represent your business anymore, or is clearly following a trend that has long since come and gone, it’s probably time to revisit and redesign.

The need to modernize the look of your brand is probably one of the main reasons to consider rebranding, and it’s a great opportunity to create renewed interest and rejuvenate your business’s values and story.

05/ THERE ISN’T ENOUGH CONSISTENCY

To establish a professional, trustworthy image, your brand needs to be consistent at every point of your business. If you don’t have one, clear message behind the brand, and instead it feels scattered, overly complicated and not at all unified, you need to take the time to consider the strategy behind your brand.

This could be a case where not everything needs to be changed, but instead some guidelines need to be placed on how to use your brand. Consider having a comprehensive style guide created for your brand. Make sure there is uniformity with how your identity, story, and values are expressed.

06/ YOUR BRAND NEEDS TO EVOLVE

The market is always changing, and your business needs to be able to adapt and keep up. Sometimes, your business model and marketing strategies change over time so much that your branding is no longer as relevant as it once was. Your products change, the way you reach your customers change, the customers themselves change. When it happens, you need to make sure your brand is still communicating effectively.

LAST THOUGHTS

So, do you think it’s time to rebrand? A rebrand shows your business’s commitment to growing and keeping up with changes to the market, its target audience, and place in the world, so it’s often an exciting moment in your business’s life.

If you do decide to undertake a full or partial rebrand, make sure you take the time to consider what needs changing, what your goals for a rebrand would be, and how to make sure the effects of your new brand is positive.