Owning a small business is a lot like owning a home. It takes careful maintenance, a great amount of effort, and every now and again it needs a fresh coat of paint to keep it up to date. Your brand needs to be able to evolve to keep things fresh, attract new clients and add credibility for your business. This is what a brand refresh is for.
Rebranding Vs. Refreshing – What’s the Difference?
You’ve probably heard the term “rebranding” over the years, but what does it mean? And how is “refreshing” your brand different from rebranding?
Refreshing a brand is similar to painting a wall or getting new windows for your house. Rebranding is more like bulldozing your house and building a new one from scratch. One is small, incremental changes over time to keep your business in top shape. While the other is rebuilding the entire structure from the ground up. Refreshing your brand is a low-cost option with minimal risk and a high potential for reward. A full rebranding can be a costly and time-consuming effort, with much higher risk involved.
How Do I Know it’s Time to Refresh My Brand?
There are lots of potential reasons for a business to perform a brand refresh. It can depend on your business’s needs and goals, or may even just be a matter of wanting a change.
Some signs that it might be time to consider a brand refresh:
- Wanting to increase traffic or sales, or noticing a decrease in either
- Lack of new clients or projects
- Changes within the company – a new mission, new products or services, or a merger or expansion
- It’s been more than a few years since you’ve made any updates
- Noticing a lack of motivation or employee drive
- A desire to attract new employees
Whatever the situation may be, a refresh can provide a multitude of benefits with simple changes over time.
What Other Benefits Could a Brand Refresh Offer?
Aside from simply being a low-cost, low risk way to revamp your business image or attract new clients, refreshing can offer quite a few other perks as well.
For a start, refreshing your brand shows adaptability and a dedication to keeping your business current and modern. This helps to add credibility to your business and can help to attract new audiences or increase your exposure to new markets.
A refresh can help to better showcase your company’s story and unique personality. It can help to create more exposure and consistency across your other channels (such as social media) as well.
A strategically done refresh can also help to boost your search engine ranking (read more about that here) and give your business a clearer focus.
It can also provide an opportunity to rethink some of your internal practices. It’s amazing how a fresh coat of paint can help to boost productivity and motivation among your employees, as well as inspire new thoughts and ideas.
How to Make Your Brand Refresh a Reality
It’s important to remember that a refresh is focused on small, feasible and incremental changes over time. Take these changes in steps and start slowly. This is a process that should continue as your business grows and it will change according to your needs at the time.
There are 3 phases, and their order of operations will largely depend on the goals you have for the immediate future. The first step is to perform a brand-audit. The next, is to refresh your image. And finally, to refresh your workspace and workforce. Let’s dive a bit deeper into what each means, and why their order may differ based on your goals.
Perform a Brand-Audit
This step should be first no matter what. It will establish your goals for the refresh and answer some important questions that can help you in the process. It’s worth taking the time to do the brand-audit, even if you ultimately decide not to make any changes.
This is where you will come up with a list such as:
- Revisiting your mission statement, who you are and what you stand for as a company
- What general needs does your service or product fulfill, who needs you and why?
- Consider your competitors and market, what sets your brand apart from the rest?
- Who do you currently attract (employees or customers) and who would you like to?
- What are the current problem areas that need attention?
- Considering how you currently market and present your company – do you easily identify the needs that your product fulfills and what sets you apart in the eyes of the public?
- What goals do you want to achieve by refreshing your brand? How might you measure them?
The list will depend on your business. You may also wish to include other considerations such as physical surroundings, web presence and accessibility for those with disabilities. You can read more about what it takes to have an ADA compliant website here.
Refresh Your Brand Image
This will likely be your step two if this is your first-time making updates, especially if you don’t have many employees or just want to start at the surface. This step is easy to get carried away with though, so remember to keep it simple. The question is what small cosmetic changes can you make to your image to make it more memorable and modern?
Consider updating or adding:
- Color schemes and typography, digital and physical. It can go a long way in making your brand stand out. In fact, using a signature color scheme can increase brand recognition by up to 80%. (Reboot, 2019)
- Photography or imagery. Consider adding assets such as staff photos to add a more personal feel to your business. There are also plenty of free resources for images, such as Unsplash.
- Consumer reviews. Be sure to address any negative feedback that you receive. 73% of consumers list customer experience as an important factor in their purchasing choices. (PWC, 2018)
- Marketing channels. Your website presence and other marketing channels such as social media. Make sure you’re presenting a united front.
No matter your focus, start small and subtle and go from there. Plenty of companies that are household names have great examples in how their logos have changed over the years. Take Burger King for example, the logo has remained very similar until more recently. Only subtle changes in color, position or additional shapes have been enough to keep the brand relevant for decades.
Refresh Your Workspace and Your Workforce
You might skip straight to this step if your immediate goals are more focused on aspects such as hiring new employees, employee motivation or improvements to your physical location.
This is where you may want to consider:
- Evaluating your surroundings and the workplace flow that results. How can you simplify things or make the environment better for the people working in it every day? Are there any obvious hindrances to productivity? Clear out clutter, change the color palette to match changes in your branding or change the arrangement. Update office furniture or add a coffee machine. Everyone likes a change of scenery every now and again, and it can breathe new life into the atmosphere.
- Evaluating your hiring and personnel practices. There’s no need to scrap your whole system, just think of problem areas or goals you have. Having trouble finding new talent or retaining personnel? Brainstorm some potential small improvements that can be implemented over time.
- What factors make your business a compelling place to work? Do you have incentives that set you apart from competitors? How well is this information conveyed your job listings? You should identify the key points of “selling” your brand to prospective employees just as you would with clients.
- Listening to your employees and providing them with access to new knowledge. Employees will be more motivated and productive if they feel that their needs or concerns are being addressed. Making employees a part of the change process promotes cohesion and can offer new insights. And by providing the opportunity for them to learn new things internally or externally, you’re promoting loyalty and bringing greater skill back to your business.
It’s no secret that a good atmosphere and happy workers make for better business. However, making them a part of the brand refresh process can help to promote loyalty and help to ensure a fresh influx of new talent. Simple changes in surroundings and communication can revitalize your workforce.
Get Started
Whatever your reason may be, there are many great benefits to refreshing your brand. Perform a brand audit, refresh your image, as well as refresh your workspace and your workforce. In following these 3 phases, you can help to make sure that your business stays credible, current and thriving in the years to come.
If you’re looking for some help with your website, we offer flexible options for just about everyone. We’d love to help bring your site up to date, or give it a fresh new look. You can check out some of our offerings here. In addition, if you’re looking to hire a professional to walk you through the process, Full Gallop Communications offers some great options for brand management and marketing strategy. You can see what other services they offer here. And finally, if you’re looking for a spot to get started for free, Canva has just about every resource you could need to get started on the basics. You can visit their website to see more.