How rebranding can help your small business

By Emma Miller

In a world where people would decide what to buy merely on price and features, there would be no competition whatsoever. Every purchase would go through a single vendor, the one with the lowest price. However, this is obviously not the case, which is why the image of your brand might just be the deciding factor when it comes to the success of your company. Nonetheless, what if you’re not entirely satisfied with your current brand traits? What if you have new plans that might require some rebranding? What if it’s time for a change? These are the questions that the majority of small businesses ask at one point, so, let’s see what the answers to some of these questions are. Check out the reasons why a small business might want to rebrand?

-Going international

In the age of e-commerce and hyper-connectivity, the fact that you’re running a small business, or even a one-person startup, is no longer a good enough reason to stay location bound. In fact, almost all small business owners (about 96 percent of them), when asked about this, are confident in their ability to do business abroad. Moreover, about 58 percent of all small businesses already have an international customer base. When starting a business, nonetheless, especially during the early stages, you may not plan with this in mind. As a result, the name of your product or your company may not have the same connotation in another language, which could, on its own, be a good enough reason to rebrand.

[amazon_link asins=’B00CEIGAG4′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’succeedingi0d-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’513c1d37-a15b-11e8-a2c1-75ed7d1d09c6′]-New management

This is probably something that’s far more likely to affect a major corporation than a small business, yet, on a micro-scale, any change in management might mean a change in the direction of a company. The change of a leader is not just a change in personnel; it is also a change in vision. This could also happen in a situation where you leave the management of your small business to a successor in order to retire or dedicate yourself to a new project. It’s vital that this ‘new management’ feels like they’re in charge; otherwise, they might start lacking intrinsic motivation, which is something that will soon have an effect on an entire company.

-Repositioning

In the introduction, we’ve mentioned that there are some instances in which you make a mistake due to the fact that, on paper, things behave differently than they do in reality. For instance, by trying to advocate for frugality, you may emphasize this so much that you risk getting associated with low quality. In that situation, even though you might have the lowest prices on the market, a large portion of your audience may feel like they’re not getting enough out of this deal. To avoid repeating the same mistake twice, you should probably ask professionals about your brand positioning and put an emphasis on it when planning your next branding strategy.

[amazon_link asins=’1935254871′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’succeedingi0d-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’60800b00-a15b-11e8-b31c-477586698de2′]-Disassociate yourself from similar brands

The existence of so many small businesses produces a significant risk of getting associated with a brand you have nothing to do with. In fact, you might not even belong to the same industry. This often happens when you decide to take your initials and turn them into a logo for your brand, seeing as how there are only so many letter combinations out there. The best-case scenario is that you might get mistakenly associated with a random brand, while the worst-case scenario is that you might get sued over a trademark infringement. So, if you failed to notice this similarity in time, it might be worthwhile to start thinking about rebranding as soon as possible.

-Keeping up with the times

There’s virtually no brand that hasn’t evolved with time. Sure, some did choose to stagnate for a longer period of time, yet, this always ended the same way – getting left behind. The best example of how this works can be seen through the evolution of company logos over the course of time. As you can see, while each of these logos changed, the essence remained the same. The simplest way to describe this change would be to say that it modernized the company image a bit. This mostly takes place due to the fact that the market evolves.

[amazon_link asins=’1503343588′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’succeedingi0d-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’6e777b4a-a15b-11e8-a644-1549c3cc8e18′]-Escaping a bad reputation

This form of rebranding is questionable from the perspective of a small business, seeing as how there are instances in which rebranding won’t yield a positive ROI. According to some, it would be more efficient to simply drop the brand and merely start over. Nonetheless, this might not necessarily be the only option.

Perhaps all you have to do to escape your bad reputation is to pivot a bit and add a few new items/services to your offer. For instance, McDonald’s was always synonymous with unhealthy food, which made them include more salads on the menu. Of course, these salads are hardly their best sellers, yet they’ve substantially improved the public image.

As you can see, many reasons exist for why your small business could benefit from an efficient rebranding campaign. Sure, we often used an example of a massive corporation, yet, even the smallest of businesses can learn a thing or two from ordeals that the top-dogs of the industry are facing.

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Emma Miller is a digital marketer and blogger from Sydney. After getting a marketing degree she started working with Australian startups on business and marketing development. Emma writes for many relevant, industry related online publications and does a job of an executive editor at Bizzmark blog and a guest lecturer at Melbourne University. Interested in marketing, startups and latest business trends.

 

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