CEO and sole owner of Next PR, an award-winning, full-service public relations firm with offices across the U.S.
You’ve done the soul searching, competitive analysis and road mapping. You have a vision for the future of your company, and it’s clear that it’s time to rebrand. Congratulations! That’s a huge decision.
Now the real work begins—and the biggest risk arises. With any rebrand, there’s always the threat of losing brand awareness, which takes time and effort to rebuild. And without the right strategy, a rebrand can actually be detrimental, as it was for Facebook. Many people seemed to view its transition to Meta mostly as a ruse to distract from bad press, and the new name fell flat for those outside the tech sphere.
One of the biggest risks when rebranding is the simple fact that there are so many moving parts. Especially for a storied company, your brand is reflected in your entire existence (or at least it should be), and there are many aspects of the transition you may not even think about until you’re in the throes of the process.
To help you prepare—and avoid midlaunch panic—here are seven tips for a flawless rebrand execution.
1. Involve team members across functions and departments. A rebrand might seem like a marketing job, but bringing other business functions into the fold can give you a broader perspective and help you avoid missing key components. For example, you’ll want to consider potential legal issues with the new name you’ve chosen, and you’ll need to switch every service your company uses over to the new name (think payroll, accounting and services like ADP, Microsoft, etc.). Consider the different teams that will be impacted, from IT to HR, and loop in leaders early on to ensure you’ve considered every factor.
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2. Include paid media in your press strategy. Of course, you’ll have a press release to announce the news and will pre-pitch your announcement to key media contacts. Beyond that, paid media placements allow you to reach broader audiences, control the timing and the message, and be more promotional in talking about your business and services. For our firm, trade publications and local business journals were great options for paid media because they allowed us to use the rebrand to introduce Next PR to potential partners, clients and new hires.
3. Create engaging content to explain the “why.” You’ve put a lot of thought into rebranding and likely have compelling reasons to make the change. Your customers and stakeholders will want to know that, along with what it means for them. Video can help to capture the excitement and personality of your organization and the spirit of the “why.” We created a short “talking head” clip where I explained the reasons for the change and how it’s part of our vision for the service we aim to provide for clients. We also leveraged our rebrand to show company momentum by including ROI-focused data and announcing new service offerings.
4. Plan well ahead for social media transitions. Changing your social media profiles takes coordination, plenty of advanced planning and some serious patience. Secure new handles ASAP and have a contingency plan in case your preferred handle is already taken. Once your new name is reserved, create new profiles to hold the name until the announcement, transition over on announcement day and then plan to phase out the old profiles in the coming weeks. On some social media platforms, like Facebook, it may take a few days to weeks for your new name to be approved, so plan accordingly with a work-back timeline.
5. Build social traction. In addition to investing in paid social media ads, use your announcement video, press release and any media coverage you secure to craft organic social posts. Encourage employees to share them on their personal social pages to help amplify the news, and provide sample content to increase employee participation and ensure a cohesive message. We designed fun branded Instagram Story stickers for our team to use to create buzz about the announcement.
6. Prepare internal and external communications and collateral. Our team created a transitional logo that depicted the switch from old to new, and we incorporated this into our announcement materials, social posts, website and email signatures to reinforce that we are the same great team, but with a new name. You’ll need to audit and update every single branded resource, including marketing content, guides, white papers, etc., to be ready on launch day. Keep employees informed of any next steps once you break the news internally, and provide useful resources, like a new email signature template, to help ease the transition. Then, create content to inform investors and other external stakeholders of the upcoming change.
7. Involve clients and customers. An engaging way to do this is to send out swag with your new logo to coincide with the announcement. This gesture shows that you consider your clients part of this big moment for your business and want to celebrate the occasion together. It’s also a great opportunity to reconnect with old clients and partners to inform them of the new brand launch.
Even with the best planning and preparation, you should be prepared that not everything will be fully switched over at the time of the rebrand announcement, and that’s okay. By aligning a strong brand concept with compelling messaging and a coordinated plan, you can mitigate any awkward growing pains and achieve wider brand recognition and business growth under your new marquee.
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Author: Heather Kelly, Forbes Councils Member