Five Signs it’s Time to Rebrand your Business

Your branding is supposed to create an ecosystem for your work. It’s supposed to create a happy happy space where your work makes sense, and everything fits together. Where your clients feel comfortable – like they’ve actually walked into a shop decked out in your favourite things, and not just clicked on your website. I think you should know the feeling, right? You’ve visited websites that somehow felt like home – or spent time on social profiles that just seemed to understand you, somehow, right?

We achieve this kind of feeling through a few different targeted brand strategies – but that’s not what we’re here to talk about today.

What if you Outgrow your branding?

We’re here to talk about what happens if you OUTGROW your branding. What if the ecosystem just… doesn’t have room for your new service offerings? If it’s seeming less like a warm hug for your clients, and more like a cold handshake? (That is of course, unless cold handshake vibes are your goal, in which case, do you, boo.)

When your branding isn’t speaking to the right audience anymore, it’s time to look at your content, and evolve your visual identity.

And that makes it seem really simple, right? You just, know, by magic, when your offerings don’t match your branding. You can just TELL when your ideal clients aren’t being pulled in. But of course you don’t know by any sort of magic, you have to actively evaluate where you are, and what you’re doing, and what is changing in your business, to be able to grow the ecosystem in a parallel way.

How to tell it’s time to rebrand

Which brings me to how exactly you can tell, without magic. I’ve used all of these signs myself, and can confirm 100% that they’re not only helpful, but pretty straightforward to evaluate!

1. You’re attracting clients who aren’t your ideal.
2. You find yourself straying from being consistent in your content.
3. The content you’re creating with your brand feels stale.
4. The components in your brand feel dated and behind the times.
5. You don’t get excited to create content with your brand materials anymore.

1. You’re attracting clients who aren’t your ideal

By now, you should know who your ideal clients are, and how to find them. You should know that part of attracting clients who you actively enjoy working with, is using brand materials that appeal to their specific interests and aesthetic preferences. Branding 101, you’re welcome.

Which is why the first sign that it’s time to rebrand, is that the clients reaching out to work with you, DON’T fall into the category of your ideal clients. They’re not picking up what you’re putting down. They’re just not that into you. Maybe they don’t have the budget for what you charge, or they’re not as excited to work with you as you’d like them to be. Maybe, you simply don’t get along.

This is a branding issue, not a marketing issue. (Remember, your marketing gets the word out, and the branding used in that marketing is what attracts those ideal clients.)

If this is happening to you in your business, it just might be time to rebrand.

2. You find yourself straying from being consistent in your content.

I believe in following your instincts when it comes to business decisions, and usually that includes business decisions about your branding. There are always of course exceptions to that rule, but largely, if it feels right, do it.

If what feels right starts getting out of line with your branding content, that might not be an issue with your own level of consistency, or your understanding of your brand standards. It might straight up be because it’s time to re-evaluate your brand, and the content that you’re using across your platforms.

When your overall aesthetic preferences change, sometimes it’s best to incorporate those changes into your branding, instead of ignoring what you like. We want to be EXCITED to work with our brand content, not feel limited!

3. The content you’re creating with your brand feels stale.

Your brand should ALWAYS be evolving, and sometimes that means making changes that feel more overarching and like a rebrand than they feel like small shifts within your branding at large. And if it feels like it’s been a while since your brand went through some of that evolution, it might be time to make changes! Whether that means shaking up the highlight covers you use on Instagram® for your account, or whether it means shifting the mood of the homepage on your site, there should always be small evolutions occurring within your brand content, just like there are small evolutions occurring within your business itself when you launch new services, etc.

If you’re finding yourself sharing essentially the same content CONSTANTLY, and it’s not attracting your ideal clients… your content might have gone stale. It might have gotten (GASP) boring. Which means (you guessed it) it’s time to look into rebranding. Just looking at your own brand content should be enough to inspire you with new content ideas. 

4. The components in your brand feel dated and behind the times.

I’ve talked about timeless branding a lot on my platforms, so you’ve probably seen this topic come up before. I have FEELINGS about “timeless” brands – in particular, that being “timeless” is bullshit, and that there is value in using branding that is trendy if it is going to serve your business. The “timeless, classic” look doesn’t work for all businesses, and not all businesses will be able to have branding that sticks for forty years in exactly the same iteration. (I mean to be fair I would challenge you to find a corporation who has managed that either.)

But there does come a time, even with branding designed to be “timeless” that the components and tones feel… old. They just don’t match up to current standards. And when that happens? Time to look at rebranding.

5. You don’t get excited to create content with your brand material anymore.

Your brand should excite you. It should be fun. You should WANT to go get into Canva, or Photoshop, and make new stuff. Graphics, banners, all of the things – they should make you want to work on them.

And if they don’t – if you’re bored with your own damn branding, then that is a MASSIVE sign that you need to look at rebranding your business. Being bored with your content will negatively impact your consistency, as well, which wraps us back around to point 2. (Obviously these are all interconnected, if you didn’t pick up on that yet!)

And what if you have these signs?

If these are popping up for you – honestly? It’s time to look at making some overarching shifts to your brand content, whether they’re small tweaks, or big changes. It might be time for a colour palette shift, or a font change. Or…. Something bigger, like a full overhaul to your logo and associated content.

So evaluate your own brand. Is it time for change?