Any business that has a long life also goes through many different branding identities.
If they don’t, the business may end up stuck in the past marketing to customers who no longer exist. For instance, a demographic such as women in their 20’s, looks completely different today than it did 20 years ago. Since a company’s brand is about the audience more than anything else, it’s important to consider how things change.
Look at a company like Johnson & Johnson.
They have been around for over 120 years. If they kept the same branding over the years, it would be difficult for them to keep marketing to the audience they want to attract. In fact, without appropriate branding they might even offend their audience.
The same can be said for your business.
It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, over time your branding may need to be updated or changed completely to reflect the direction your audience has moved. If you’ve paid attention to your audience, you are aware and open to how they’ve changed and in what direction they are leading you.
Let’s take a look at what branding does:
- Branding Communicates Directly to Your Audience
- Branding Engages Customers
- Branding Connects Your Product to Your Customer Emotionally
- Branding Motivates Buyers
- Branding Confirms and Increases Your Credibility
If your current branding is not accomplishing those goals, it’s time to make a change.
The change might be as simple as a redesign of the logo to a more modern logo, it might mean a change of fonts, or even how your web design looks. Whatever you do, your re-branding should focus completely on your audience and the people who you want to be your customers. After all, it’s the audience that informs the brand, not the other way around. It’s how they see your business, not how you see it.
The choices you make when branding your small business will make a huge impact on every aspect of your business moving forward. The branding will inform the messaging you use going forward, how you connect with your customers, and even how you tell the story of your products to your audience.
The research you do about your audience in order to improve your branding may also impact the choices you make regarding product creation in the future. In short, branding is everything. But, it’s not static. It can and should change over time as your business and customers evolve. Branding, after all is all about your audience.
Spending time developing and building your brand is like building your relationship with your customers. It takes time; it evolves, and leads the way for all your marketing efforts. If the branding is not right, it’s okay, just work on it, and perfect it over time keeping your mind open to your audience and their needs, wants, and desires.
Changing your brand can also be dangerous, as many, many companies have shown us. If you misinterpret your clients you may come across as out of touch or worse.
Oh yes, remember New Coke. This was a good example of a company who did not have their ear to the ground about their market. It’s always about the customer, it’s never about what you want.
Changing your branding isn’t easy. If you’re a well-known brand then making sudden, sweeping changes can muddle your existing customers. Rather, a gentle change from one form to another is typically the better idea – more of an “evolution” than a “switch”.
I totally agree. I’d start with very small changes remembering at each step what the goal is. The goal is to get the right message across to your audience.
Branding Connects Your Product to Your Customer emotionally, it is essential. Sometimes in the routine of work one forgets this, but it is essential.
Absolutely, emotions are everything when it comes to effective branding. Their emotions, not ours.
As a small business owner I have experienced this myself over the years with the internet, social media and the changes in the publishing industry. Having to reinvent several times to adapt and meet the needs of my customers and I see no stopping that in the future.
Good for you Michael. Keeping your ear to the ground at all times will keep your business moving forward and not stuck in the past.
This is one I have experienced quite often unfortunately – I worked in retail for nearly ten years and then on the consultant side of digital marketing for nearly 6 years or so. A lot of times, keeping calm and waiting before you respond is the best way to go about it.
Most definitely, staying calm is essential.
Brands are the face and the represention of a particular business. It is usually presented to the public wherein they would know and familiarize the product of that specific brand. Brands may be compared by people, that’s why sometimes they tend to not trust the product anymore. That’s the time to refurnish the brand or give it a make over for it to hit the market again.
That’s a really good point about public trust of the brand. If a brand has lost public trust the makeover must happen.
Hey Stephanie,
I agree – branding should change overtime as your needs & the needs of your customer’s evolve.
How important to branding is having a name that is immediately identifiable and spell-able? Would you consider doing a complete re-brand if your company name was commonly spelled wrong?
It would depend on whether or not I can do something about the issue of the misspelling. For instance, the brand known as Google wasn’t even a word before and it turned out pretty good for them. But, if I was early on in the process and could figure out how to change before sinking too much time and money on the wrong name then I would probably do it.