“The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change.” —Bill Clinton
As you may have noticed, my business branding has recently had a refresh and my website and social media pages have been updated to fit in with the new look – I hope you like it! A rebrand is something that I’ve been considering for a number of months, but it is definitely a business task that is far too easy to put on the back-burner if you are wrestling a huge in-tray full of billable client work! However, this new year I decided to take the bull by the horns and embrace this change, commissioning a graphic designer to create a logo and brand that more accurately reflected ‘Personally Virtual’ in 2019.
I haven’t necessarily added any new services to my list of business offerings this year and am not planning on re-launching my business or making any dramatic changes, so some may think that a rebrand is an unnecessary expense in the day to day running of my business. However, just because the business hasn’t changed dramatically to the outside world, it doesn’t mean that I’m not in a state of transition; the last few months have seen my team grow significantly and incredibly positively, and I wanted to acknowledge this development in a shiny, visual way.
If your business logo/branding is looking a little tired and dated, why not consider a refresh? There are plenty of reasons why it could be a good time to rebrand – you might have new products or services on offer, be trying to appeal to a new audience, have a new specialism under your belt, or be celebrating a ‘new beginning’ (i.e. growing your team, moving offices, etc.). Even if nothing has changed, it could be that you WANT a change in your business, and investing a little cash in your brand identity could help to kick-start that change by giving you a psychological boost and allowing you to celebrate and publicise that change on your social media channels (a great advertising tool!).
Having just completed my own re-brand, here are a few helpful tips I’ve learnt that could help with your own branding project:
Think ahead – Just because ‘Living Coral’ is the Pantone Colour of the Year, it doesn’t mean that you should jump on the coral bandwagon and use it for everything on your website. Think about a font and colour combination that aren’t just fashionable now, but will still look clean and fresh in a couple of years time – make sure your branding is in it for the long haul!
Get a professional in – 25 minutes on Canva and I feel like a graphic designer, but the point is I’m not. If you want an eye-catching and original logo in all the formats you could ever require (from transparent to high-resolution), you need an expert graphic designer on the case. They’ll also be able to provide you with the exact details of the fonts and colours used so that these can become your style guidelines to help ensure consistency of branding.
Publicise the change – if you’ve invested in a re-brand, it’s worth making a song and dance about it! It may be that customers still associate your business with your previous logo and brand imagery too, so letting them know that it’s you and not some hip new competitor can be handy!
Take time to find and replace old branding – If you are spending out on a rebrand, make sure that you invest some time in replacing your logos across social media channels and in any business directories that you may appear in. Your website too, obviously, needs to be updated on every page – inconsistent branding looks messy and can be confusing to website users, so block out a good few hours in your diary to make the necessary changes, as it always takes longer than anticipated to update everything!
In my opinion, a re-brand is like the icing and sprinkles on the cake for a business; it’s consistent hard work and quality of service that makes a business, and it is a business’s reputation that ultimately leads it to success or failure. The font, style and colour of your logo aren’t going to maintain monthly retainers or win new clients, but they can help to convey a level of professionalism and give you the confidence to leave your business cards/website information with peers and customers without feeling embarrassed about outdated branding! So don’t listen to the naysayers – if a business rebranding can give you increased confidence and add a level of polish and prestige to your successful business (even if you have a perfectly functional business logo to start with), then embrace it! You put hours of work and blood, sweat and tears into your small business and you should be proud of every single aspect of it!