A full rebrand is an enormous endeavor for a company to undertake. Sometimes, a simple refresh of its image across all platforms can have a significant impact on the business for a lot less time, energy, effort and cost.
A minor “glow up” for your brand might involve many small tweaks and adjustments that add up to a major difference in how current and prospective customers perceive your company, and this can have a positive impact on sales. To learn more about simple steps you can take to polish your brand up and help it shine and stand out among competitors, check out the tips from the members of Forbes Agency Council below.
Forbes Agency Council members share ways to refresh of a company’s image without a full rebrand.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Make A Secondary Color Your Primary Color On Social
A simple refresh of color can do wonders for a brand on social media. Brands often have a set of underutilized secondary colors in their design systems. Try flipping the script and making one of these the primary color on social media. Align it with a cultural event or some company news. It does not have to be permanent. Small moves can lead to big changes, especially in digital. – John Geletka, Geletka+
2. Start With A Basic Auditing And Realignment Exercise
Is there dissonance among your company’s brand assets? Are all of these assets still relevant to your company’s target audience? Work on developing a solid brand voice and establishing quality control measures to improve the consistency of content assets across platforms. This would go a long way toward building credibility and trust. – Lars Voedisch, PRecious Communications
3. Build Authority With New Content
New content can be the breath of fresh air that can refresh an image. Establishing yourself as an authority in your industry can show your company in a new light, demonstrating your expertise. Alongside this, your brand message and slogan can often be changed. These steps, combined, can get the final result you are looking for. – Lisa Montenegro, Digital Marketing Experts – DMX Marketing
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4. Put Pencil To Paper
If a full rebrand or repositioning isn’t in the cards, then refresh all of the surrounding language that conveys your relevance to customers’ needs. Reevaluate the descriptive language that you use with your logo, pen a dynamic new tagline and recraft your brand story to make it modern and responsive to today’s market demands. The right words are amazingly powerful. – Jim Heininger, Dixon|James & Rebranding Experts
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5. Evolve Regularly
Use seasonality, holidays and other opportunities to refresh your brand without generating a costly and time-consuming rebrand campaign. By regularly evolving with what is topical and top of mind for your customers, you ensure that your brand aligns with their interests when they are engaging with you. Simple adjustments to logos, creative and copy keep your brand from seeming dated. – Jonathan Schwartz, Bullseye Strategy
6. Break Your Brand Rules
Social media is social—if you’re focused on a uniform style, you will lose the ability to quickly adapt and adjust to trends.Think about breaking your brand rules. Keep a consistent message, and never deface your logo, but everything else—break it! In a fast-moving world, many brand and tone-of-voice guides go beyond being helpful; they hamstring you. – Dean Seddon, Maverrik
7. Refresh The Color Scheme And Typefaces
The easiest way to update a brand is to refresh the color scheme and the type styles. It is often an interim step that leads to a full rebrand. The 2020s will be known for a gray, black and white color palette; changing it out will automatically give it a fresh new look, while management does a deeper dive into the larger picture. – Leeza Hoyt, The Hoyt Organization, Inc.
8. Try An Avatar Update, Bio Refresh And Landing Page Swap
An avatar update, bio refresh and landing page swap is the quickest way to refresh the brand. Also, pinning content where applicable helps. When adding URLs to your identity, it is important to think about the content persona you’re targeting on that platform. Customization of platforms to personas is easier than an overhaul—and converts better. – Vix Reitano, Agency 6B
9. Describe What Your Company Does In 140 Characters
Think about how you would describe what your company really does in 140 characters. Then, use that one-liner across all platforms. You then need a bold image or carousel that provides the context and brings that message to life. Be bold, be clear and ensure that your tone of voice is reflected in the imagery. – Julia Linehan, The Digital Voice PR Agency Ltd
10. Change The Direction And Voice Of Your Content
The most noticeable way to refresh a brand’s image in a scalable way across all platforms is by changing the content you are putting out. Change the direction of the content that is being pushed across all platforms, and your brand will begin to be perceived as your new content’s voice. Brand is what others think of you, and many relate this to the voice of the content being put out. – Tony Pec, Y Not You Media
11. Design Flexible Space
A great way to make consistent, small image tweaks is to design flexible space. This is the practice of identifying which aspects of brand guidelines can be broken to support ad-hoc, relevant (and often time-limited) visual variations. Google is the master of doing this, with doodles frequently taking over their search page, but other brands can achieve similar relevance with smaller scopes and rulesets too. – Chris Martin, FlexMR
12. Gradually Add New Ideas To Existing Ones
Run a new, small campaign on the platforms without stopping the old way of doing things. A company can also launch a new product and blend it with an existing one. The gradual inclusion of new ideas and products can easily phase out the original brand without being easily noticed, even as the new ideas dominate. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Agency, Inc
13. Make The Customer The Hero In Your Story
One step you can take is to focus your messaging across all platforms. Think about what your best customers care about and update your messaging to reflect those relevant nuggets of information. Make your customer or prospect the hero in your story. Instead of saying, “Our product has these great features,” say, “Client X tells us the benefit is lower maintenance and repair costs.” Illustrate your value. – Megan Devine, d.trio marketing group
14. Give Your Image A Fresh Perspective With UGC
User-generated content is like digital gold. Use it to give a fresh perspective to your brand’s image. Companies often obsess over their brand and image, and it’s important to take a step back and consider how your customers view your brand. It’s definitely easier and faster than rebranding, and yet it can be more powerful, because it’s refreshing and feels unbiased. – Rafael Romis, Weberous Web Design
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Author: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member
