At Drucker Group, we’ve helped both long-term and new client partners rebrand their businesses. Suffice it to say, rebranding strategy is no small task. It has far-reaching consequences on how your company is perceived in the market. The most prudent first step may be to explore whether the rebrand is needed at all. Your brand may just need a new marketing communications campaign to reach and persuade your audience more effectively.
But if a rebrand is the way to go, clearly refining the reasons will also make the whole process more successful. Some companies rebrand for practical reasons, such as mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs. A new leadership team may call for a rebrand to better communicate their vision. Other reasons may be more goal-oriented, such as the launch of a new product or service, or the desire for a business to be better calibrated to the changing needs of the market. (Here’s a good example: A private equity-owned digital graphics printing firm client of ours emerged from a strategic plan process and re-imagined itself as a full-service visual solutions provider to transportation fleets: Modagrafics)
Once the reasons are clearly defined, the next step is to find out what your target customer wants and what they think about your company. Your company’s competitors should also be researched, as should the trends affecting your industry sector. To avoid organizational blind spots and get the most honest feedback possible, you should hire specialists to conduct independent research.
Your research should unearth information about the market’s present state and future growth prospects. It should also illuminate customer pain points, purchase drivers, and buying and usage experiences. (All things included in Drucker Group’s Voice Of Customer research.) This information and insight will help you determine your best customer value proposition. This will be the key consideration in every step moving forward, including the strategic marketing plan, brand identity design, go-to-market strategy, B2B content marketing strategy, and more.
A successful rebrand, followed by an effective marketing communications campaign to support its rollout, will change perceptions inside and outside of your organization. You’ll see renewed company spirit around shared goals, better alignment with customer needs and wants, and increased momentum in the market among prospective buyers, distributors and channel partners, the analyst community and industry trade press. Ultimately, your company will be poised for optimum growth.