8 Reasons To Rebrand Yourself (With Tips)

Whether you’re a small business owner, independent freelancer contractor or representative of a large corporation, brand image is an important part of maintaining business integrity. Rebranding can help professionals create a new professional image for themselves or the company, which may help ease a transition to a different market, separate the company from an unfortunate incident, or provide a new direction for the business. Understanding the reasons a business or person might rebrand themselves can help you determine whether you’re ready to rebrand. In this article, we explore eight reasons to rebrand yourself.

8 reasons to rebrand yourself

Here are eight reasons to rebrand yourself:

1. The brand’s audience changes

When a brand’s audience changes, it’s important for the brand’s image to change with the audience to maintain customer-brand alignment. Customers often associate themselves with their favorite brands they feel represent them and their preferences. Aligning your brand with your changing customer base can help you appeal to the right customers and ensure that you’re still selling products and services. Maintaining this alignment may help a business scale more effectively as it grows, minimizing the challenges that can accompany brand growth. Brand audiences can change when new generations become customers or products stop appealing to the current audience.

2. You want to enter new markets

When a brand attempts to enter a new market with new products and services, attracting the market’s customers is an important step. Rebranding the company’s image or your personal image can help you separate yourself from the competitors in the market and potentially attract more customers. New markets can offer unique challenges that may require an entirely new persona. For example, if a technology company enters the social media market, it might rebrand itself around privacy and information security to differentiate itself from other companies that take advantage of its customers’ private information.

3. You want to separate yourself from an old persona

An older persona for a business or individual may need updating as things change in the market or after an unfortunate incident occurs. For example, if the same technology company misuses private information, the company might seek to rebrand itself to separate the company from its mistake. This can help the business appeal to a new audience by separating the name from the incident, which may eventually help customers disassociate the company from that incident. Updating a brand’s persona can help you appeal to younger generations, and new customers and help eliminate any mistrust customers might harbor from the incident.

4. Your brand doesn’t match your products and services

When a brand’s image matches its products and services, customers may feel more confident about making a purchase. Brand and product alignment can help show consistency and attract your target audience. For example, if a brand adopts an image of sustainability and environmental stewardship, but uses unsustainable materials in production, the company might face challenges in attracting an audience that values sustainability. By rebranding the company around quality instead of sustainability, the company can realign its products with its brand image and potentially attract its ideal audience to maximize its sales and exposure.

5. The brand is growing

When brands grow, rebranding often becomes a necessity because larger companies can have greater needs, responsibilities and a more diverse customer base. Matching the company’s brand image to its size and influence may help customers be more trusting of the company. For example, if a publishing company grows and adds audiobooks to its printing and publishing services, a rebranding around complete publishing services can help establish the company as an audiobook producer. Brand growth is often crucial to business success, but rebranding as the company grows can be equally important for attracting the right customers.

6. You don’t like your brand

When you don’t like your brand, you might decide to rebrand for more personal satisfaction. Liking your own brand can be important because it may help you feel more confident in your efforts and help you find satisfaction in the products and services you offer. Consider rebranding if you feel your brand can align more with personal values or create a new primary brand objective. For example, if you think your products can be more sustainable, you can rebrand yourself around environmentalism and sustainability to help you feel more confident about your contribution to environmentalism, a personal value.

7. You want your brand to be more memorable

A memorable brand can be more successful because customers and non-customers remember the brand’s image anytime they see or hear about similar products. Rebranding may help your brand become more distinguishable from others in your market, increasing customer recognition. Many brands create memorable logos, and slogans or contribute to society in a memorable way to improve their brand’s memorable image. For example, a clothing company might accept old clothing in exchange for store credit and gift that clothing to people in need. Customers might remember this act of compassion and be more likely to purchase from that company.

8. The brand is outdated in modern markets

If you feel your brand’s images, products or services don’t align with modern market requirements, you might consider a rebrand to attract a more modern audience. Evolving with social, political, technological, and business standards can help a brand cement itself as a permanent addition to any market. Consider rebranding if your brand uses outdated business practices or if your products and services don’t match the quality or practicality of your competitors. Keeping pace with modern standards can help a company appeal to new generations and maintain a consistent audience for its products or services.

Tips for rebranding yourself

Here are some simple tips for rebranding yourself or your company:

• Be authentic: Customers may appreciate authenticity in an age where information is more readily available. Consider adopting the values of transparency and authenticity to create a new image of trust between business and customer, which can help improve customer relations and increase revenue.

• Create a unique value proposition: As you rebrand yourself, it’s important to identify your brand’s unique value proposition, or the value only you or your company can offer the customer. Focusing your image around a unique value proposition can show the customer that your brand is uniquely qualified to meet their needs.

• Create strong company values and uphold them: Upholding strong values can show the company’s commitment to a mission and display brand consistency. Customers might appreciate a brand that aligns with and upholds strong values with which they identify, creating a stronger relationship between you and the customer.

• Research the competition: Your competition can serve as a valuable source of information for the rebranding transformation. Research your competition to learn more about their values, how they serve the customer, and what customers like about their products or services so you can match or exceed them in the market.

I hope you find this article helpful.