Your brand should be a number of things
Your brand should tell a story
- Why is it unique? What value do I offer my customers?
- Keep it simple – don’t be complicated. You should be able to summarise your brand’s story into a single sentence or slogan.
- Make it personal – customers love connecting with real people who are different to big, faceless businesses. When connecting with your customers, you should use your own speaking voice and don’t be afraid to share who you are with your audience.
Your brand should be cohesive and consistent
- Everything you create should reflect your brand. This makes your brand recognisable when your images are shared on social media or when your products pop up in their feeds.
1. Are you embarrassed of your brand?
When you hand out your business cards or share your logo on social media, do you cringe a little? Well this is the first sign that you need to rebrand. Your brand should be something you are proud of and want to share with the world.
2. Are you the same as your ‘competition’?
If your logo and branding looks the same as everyone else, then you will want to rebrand to set yourself apart from the crowd. Whether it is just changing your fonts, colors or even the whole look.
3. Has your brand grown?
Has your brand changed and developed over the years. You may find that you are now using less of your brand colors and a different color palette entirely. If this is this is the case, you will want to reassess what color scheme you want to focus on, especially if your logo and website uses your old color palette or fonts.
4. Has your brand become outdated – either because of your slogan, graphics etc?
When you first branded, a certain style of font or color may have been very popular but now they are outdated. When rebranding, it may be a good idea to use fonts and color palettes that will not become outdated very quickly or are more classic. Simple sans serif fonts paired with a stylish script font always work well together.
5. Has your target audience changed?
If you create products for teachers, has your grade level changed? Have you started creating for older or younger grades? Has your grade-level focus changed? This could be simply because you changed grades or you have started enjoy making products for different grades. If this has happened, you will need to rebrand so that your branding appeals to your new target market.
6. Have the style of your products changed?
Have you recently redone all your products to appeal to a more modern market? You logo may no longer look good with your new updated product look and you may want something that really stands out against your new product designs.
7. Is your brand too convoluted – is the message difficult to understand?
If your brand is too hodge podge and sends too many messages then it may be time to refocus and recreate your brand. If your logo is really cutesy but your social media images are sleek and modern then people may not associate those images with your brand or even become confused when they then navigate to your cutesy store.
There are a number of great reasons to rebrand and these are just a few of the most important ones. But remember, rebranding takes effort and time but it will always pay off if you do it correctly!
