7 Tips For A Successful Brand Makeover

For business owners and corporate CEOs, contemplating a brand makeover can be an exciting – yet daunting – experience. There’s usually a reason for deciding to do a brand makeover. It typically starts with a brand critique that identifies areas where your existing branding is struggling to represent your business well. The key is to recreate your brand without alienating your existing customer base or turning off potential customers. The first stage of that brand recreation comes in knowing your WHY. These are the top four reasons businesses opt for a brand makeover.

• Your target market and ideal client are changing. This applies whether you’re shifting to a higher-end client or marketing a new line of products at a lower price point.
• Your existing branding and marketing materials simply aren’t getting the job done. Branding and graphics can become dated over time and trends can change. Both necessitate a need for refreshed branding.
• Your company is scaling up. When your business grows from a one-man (or one-woman) operation to a franchise model to a corporation, a brand that is poised to reach a wider audience might create the need for a brand makeover that will stand the test of time in a variety of neighborhoods and communities.
• Your company is merging with another brand. When this happens, you need to combine one brand’s visual identity with another brand’s identity to create one cohesive look and feel your target market will appreciate and respond to.

With those ideals in mind, these are our top seven tips for a successful brand makeover:

1. Create branding that sets you apart from your competition. It’s a good idea to study your competitors and see how they reach your shared target market. It’s not a good idea to copy them to the point that your brand and theirs blend together.
2. Design a brand that speaks to your company’s specific personality, vision, and culture. If your company builds custom laptops for CEOs and IT pros, bright, primary colors won’t fit your brand. If your company sells children’s products, though, bright primary colors may be exactly what your branding needs.
3. Choose graphics and branding that will stand the test of time and function well in the long-term. While a brand makeover is a good thing and a smart way to give your business a boost, it’s definitely not something you want to do every year. That’s why working with a professional design team is so important.
4. Via surveys, field tests, and other forms of market research, find out what your ideal consumer wants to see in your branding. At the end of the day, your goal is to reach your target market and encourage them to do business with you. Getting them to tell you how to market with this is ideal.
5. Build consistency and easy recognizability into your new brand right from the start. Make it easy for your business to be recognized at a glance.
6. Make sure every element of your brand makeover translates into a variety of forms. From signage to decals to social media to vehicle wraps, your graphics should not become distorted, hard to understand, or harsh to look at.
7. Build a brand that is cohesive. Every element of your brand doesn’t need to be identical, but it does need to go together and make one clear picture in the minds of your preferred customers.

When your business is ready for a brand makeover that reaches a new target market, engages potential and existing buyers, and leads to new sales, contact us today. Our 79 years of customer satisfaction, glowing testimonials, and industry awards are a simple phone call or mouse click away. Put the power of graphic design to work for your company and create the sales message you need to create the future your business deserves.