A year ago, we didn’t know much about how to rebrand a company. However, we learned fast. If you are reading this, that means you are looking at our BRAND-NEW website! This summer we changed our company name from Track5Media to TrackFive. We dropped the “media, redid our company logo, and redefined our company values. Now it’s time to flaunt our updo to the world!
You like?
We do.
However, rebranding was no easy feat, and plenty of debates, tears, and beers went into the project.
We decided to change our name because we felt that the “Media” tacked onto the end was too confusing for potential employees and clients. People constantly confused us for an agency – which we are not – or they thought we were some sort of publisher. This is a really unique reason to rebrand, but plenty of companies out there change their brand and logo for lots of different reasons. No matter the reason why, at the end of the day, there are a few basic steps to follow. After about a year of going through it, here are the important things to know about how to rebrand a company.
Five Tips on How to Rebrand a Company
1. Decide where or nor you really need to rebrand
When it comes to rebranding, you want to make sure it’s actually necessary. Take it from us – rebranding is a lot of work. If there are other changes you can make to solve an issue, do that before you completely rebrand your company. Rebranding can be a lot of fun, but it can also be confusing for clients. It’s important to be sure that down the road, the pros are going to outweigh the cons.
2. Make sure your brand tells a story and connects with your audience
Another thing to keep in mind about your brand is that it tells everyone who you are. This isn’t just about people identifying your brand with a certain design or color scheme. Your brand goes much deeper than that. It tells people what they can expect from you. It tells them what you do, what you stand for, the quality of your product, and how you treat your employees.
3. Don’t stray too far from where you were
Although your brand isn’t just about people recognizing your logo, that is very important. If you do rebrand and change the appearance of your brand, you shouldn’t stray too far from where you were in the beginning. For example, one of the colors in our previous logo was orange, and we made sure to bring that kind of bright, pop-color into our new logo. We also didn’t completely change our name, but simply dropped the confusing part of it, and spelled it out instead of using the digit. This gave it a cleaner, more mature look, without completely confusing people.
4. Don’t do it just to show face
As I kind of touched on above, you don’t want to rebrand simply because you want to redesign your logo. A true rebrand goes much deeper than that. A rebrand makes you step back and ask really important questions about your business. What is my mission statement? What services do we provide? How do we treat our employees? What values define us collectively? What makes us unique from other businesses? Why should people like us? Most importantly, what kind of talent do we want to hire and how do we appeal to them?
5. Make sure your clients know it’s coming
Promotion of a rebrand is critical to its success. Depending on the type of business you’re operating, you may want to start promotion before the rebrand is complete. It’s a good idea to tell clients you work with consistently that you are changing. For us, TrackFive is an umbrella to several smaller brands. The clients we work with host jobs on our job boards. Most of them recognize us as the brand they are using to recruit talent, and not as TrackFive. However, when they get emails from us or monthly billing documents, they’re looking for TrackFive. It was important for us to warn people ahead of time that we are making that change, so they knew not to spam those messages.
What are some additional tips that you have for how to rebrand a company? Share with us in the comments below.
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