Branding

When Should You Refresh Your Branding?

Many a marketer mulls the brand refresh—and with good reason. It’s hardly a secret that breathing new life into your brand can help harness its influence. Similarly spring cleaning can clear out cobwebs and extraneous items, rearrange the layout of a room, and reemphasize the elements that matter most, a brand refresh may be just what the doc ordered. Yet unlike rearranging furniture, your revamp could set you back if you don’t have a strategy. To avoid the unnecessary drama of a brand refresh fail, be sure to define your goals. The best way to do this is to clarify why a change is needed to begin with.

Here are a 4 common reasons to kickstart a brand refresh:

Your design is stale or outdated

Is your visual identity fresh as a morning pastry and modern as an open concept office? Eventual, even regular changes are needed to be seen as an industry authority. Updating your image to ensure relevancy keeps you a cut above competitors. Have a gander at your logo, your website, and any other visual materials. Ask yourself if it’s living up to its rockstar potential. Maybe your design is challenging to use with any consistency. Maybe your logo is clunky, or you secretly hate it. Or—your print and digital assets are disjointed—a common issue nowadays. Aligning your brand along all channels is vital to better visibility and a quality customer experience.

Growth is stalled and stuttering

Is your brand getting the results it should? If your sales and lead generation have slowed, it’s time to get to the source of the stagnancy. Often, a new look is an effective way of garnering attention, even paving the way for a new messaging strategy—from gimmicky to cutting edge, perhaps, or traditional to diversity-first. Something as deceptively simple as a new logo could be just what’s needed to lure would-be customers from the periphery. Still, standing out from the competition is hard in today’s ultra-saturated marketplace. Doing it right requires getting to the root of what your brand stands for.

Your company has evolved

If you want to attract new customers, start by asking yourself if you’re reaching the right ones. The initial vision for a company doesn’t always have staying power. As your business evolves, so too should its branding. Maybe your target audience or product positioning has changed, or you’ve decided that you want to reach a specific segment more meaningfully. New visual messaging can newly evoke meaning—be it youthfulness, creativity, or inclusiveness—effectively expanding your reach into uncharted territory.

Your vision is blurred

Brand consistency is valuable at all levels. Delivering familiar experiences is how you create trust. It doesn’t matter if your services have remained the same forever. The world itself is constantly changing, and your marketing efforts should reflect this. It may seem basic, but when your visual branding is clearly linked to your products or services, customers don’t have to work to figure you out, and this goes a long way toward cultivating interest, intrigue, and sustainable selling.

Bottom line:

A brand refresh done right offers a host of invaluable benefits. To name a few:

• Stronger communication of your vision and values
• Clearer expression of your brand personality
• Meaningful connection with clients
• Memorable experiences thanks to consistency
• Inspired customer trust and loyalty
• A prominent niche in your crowded industry
• The ability to demonstrate the value of your services
• The power to keep your competition on their toes

Once you know why you need a refresh, rebrand, and/or refocus, the what tends to fall into place. You can move mountains, simply by asking yourself the right questions about the current effectiveness of your visual media.