Time for a Rebrand? Use the Brand Audit Checklist to find out.
Do you feel like you’ve outgrown your brand? Maybe you’re ready to attract a next-level audience or you’re not feeling like your brand really represents the experience your offers give your clients.
It might be time to rebrand your business.
After about six months of officially being in business, I was running into a lot of mindset blocks.
I wasn’t feeling confident in my offers, I didn’t really know who it was I was trying to talk to, and I was totally overwhelmed with the sheer number of services I was selling (you used to have to scrollllll my Services page like a major historical event on Wikipedia).
Things just weren’t feeling aligned.
So, I started working with a branding coach who helped me uncover what it was I really wanted to offer, what I was good at, and how to use my customer data to narrow down and reorganize my offers.
Before working with my coach, I was focusing on copywriting services, but wanting to talk about branding and customer experiences and building an ambiance through brand strategy. I had been offering every type of copy service imaginable to every type of business and was operating more like a general freelancer, but wanted to actually build a business model that specialized in a few branding services.
After a couple of sessions together, it was obvious where my heart was and the kind of customer I wanted to work with — folks who were PASSIONATE about serving and contributing, saw their business as an extension to their purpose, and wanted to build a sustainable brand and enriched community!
Once I restructured my services to align with what I was passionate about doing and what my clients needed, I felt so much more confident to share my business with the world.
Narrowing down my focus also meant that my brand name was no longer aligning with my new service suite — so I changed from Jessica Graham Copywriter to Jessica Graham Brand Studio.
I also decided that a brand refresh was a must so that my messaging would align with my revamped offers and the brand personality reflected the ambiance. I updated my domain, logo, brand photos, and completely refreshed my brand strategy.
I followed the five phases of brand strategy to help navigate my rebrand.
We know that your brand is organic, always evolving and shifting. So a brand refresh isn’t necessary every time you want to update something about your brand. So how can you decide if it’s time for a rebrand?
When is it time to rebrand your small business?
There can be plenty of reasons for you to rebrand or refresh your brand. Look over the following questions, and if you answer yes to any of them, it could be time to rebrand your business.
Have you recently changed the goal of your business?
Do you feel like you’ve outgrown the look and vibe and your branding?
Is your brand lacking consistency across all touchpoints?
Are you having difficulty reaching your ideal clients?
Are you embarrassed about the overall look and sound of your brand?
Is your website not selling as much as you’d like?
If you answered yes to some of these questions, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to burn it all down or invest in a whole new name, website, and brand identity. It could just be that your messaging needs to be polished up.
When you’re building a brand, there are foundational elements that needs to be firmly in place before the rest of the brand can successfully build and evolve.
So before deciding what approach you should take, consider the following phases of building a brand and see where you fall right now.
Phase One
You need to know how you stand out in your market. What differentiates you from your competitors? What makes your clients say ‘yes’ to working with you?
Phase Two
You need to clarify what you offer and specialize in. Maybe like me, you’re ready to shed the services you’ve been reluctantly offering and instead go all-in on offering the things that really light you up.
Phase Three
After those two foundational pieces are in place, it’s time to refine your messaging and content strategy. This is the most challenging piece of the puzzle, and takes time and strategy to get right.
Application Tip (for a dewy glow):
Your brand messaging is the core message that’s woven into every touchpoint of your brand’s communication. It’s how you articulate your brand values and offers clearly, and can apply the 3 C’s of brand messaging: consistency, clarity and character.
the benefits of a rebrand
A brand refresh or a rebrand can support the following issues:
Leverage your core identity as a way to stand out
As a purpose-driven, impact-making entrepreneur, it’s powerful to lean into your big ‘why’. This deepens connections with your audience and can make your brand more memorable and stand out.
Your core identity is made up of: Purpose
Mission
Values
Vision
Unique Value Proposition
Know exactly who your ideal client is and how to talk to them
Know exactly who it is you want to work with and the intricacies of what makes this persona tick. Maybe you decided you’re ready to reach a next-level audience, or an entirely different persona completely. Knowing what their struggles are, their values, what they consider success will help guide your brand strategy.
Fill gaps & find opportunities
Understanding your competitors and how their brands are positioned will help you know how you can stand out in your market and fill any gaps. Perhaps there’s a gap in the market for a particular service you’re able to provide, or a price point, or a target market. Knowing what your competitors are doing, how they’re positioned, and where you can stand out is a great way to get clear on the strategy behind your brand.
Aligned brand messaging
When looking at a brand, the identity is the outer layer —think fashion and makeup— and the messaging is the mind and heart. Your brand messaging is how you communicate elements of your core identity, your offers, and your personality to create a connection with your ideal audience.
If you’ve decided to target a different audience group than before, or you’ve gained clarity around what your brand stands for and its personality, then a brand refresh could help you reach your people.
A more authentic & stand-out look
Brands that outgrow their previous identity or who want to attract a different type of audience should consider rebranding. Perhaps your small business is ready for a more sophisticated, chic, or playful brand identity, or you need to stand out from the crowd. A new look can position your brand to attract the right client.
Rebranding can also provide your customer-facing content with more consistency. If your social media content and website content look vastly different from one another, a brand refresh will offer a cohesiveness to your business that builds trust and authority.
Grow, scale, & earn more
Upleveling your brand could be the thing that takes you to the next level in your business. Getting your messaging right, your design on point, and the overall personality of the business polished up can attract your ideal client and resonate with them through a shared language and identity.
Having an audience that trusts your brand and resonates with your values and purpose can have long-lasting revenue success.
How to rebrand your business
Sometimes, we business owners can use these types of projects to distract us from the tasks we don’t really want to tackle in our business. So be sure that you’re really ready for the big undertaking of a rebrand and are confident in your reasons for wanting one.
To start, you need to decide what exactly needs to be revamped and why. Sometimes, a refreshed website design and content is enough to help propel your brand to the next stage of business. Other times, you may want an entirely new website including domain and name, social media content, and brand identity.
Once you have an idea of what needs rebranding, decide on your budget for it all. Even if you plan on DIY-ing your rebrand, consider if you’ve DIY-ed your content before. If the answer is yes, then consider if perhaps outsourcing some of the things that go into branding could benefit your business and your new brand strategy.
Some things that you should definitely consider investing in include:
Website designer
Copywriter
Brand Strategist
Logo designer
Brand photos
Use a Brand Audit Checklist to Guide Your Brand Strategy
If you’ve recently revamped your offer suite or pivoted your business completely, a rebrand is necessary.
To put your brand’s best foot forward on launch day, it’s important to maintain consistency across customer-facing touchpoints. But there are a lot of things that can easily be overlooked when undergoing a rebrand.
I don’t know about you, but I’m the type of gal who loves to see what all goes into something before deciding what my approach will be. I’m a planner and a researcher through and through (Human Design Generator 1 / 3).
So, you’re probably wondering…
What do I need to consider in a brand audit?
What steps do I need to take when DIY’ing my brand strategy?
What should I include in a rebrand?
What can I NOT overlook when my rebrand is complete?
I got you.
Using a Brand Audit Checklist helps me to decide where something is falling short, what I could focus my efforts on, and what I need to consider when reviewing my brand strategy.
This rebrand checklist will help you remember the easy-to-forget places where our brands show up and need to be refreshed to align with your brand’s new look, sound, and feel.
Plus, I’ve included my BONUS five-phase brand strategy checklist that I follow with every brand strategy client. The checklist will help you know what you need to consider, develop, create, and refine in a (re)brand or a start-up.
Download the free Brand Glow-Up Audit: Rebrand + Strategy Checklist below.
Looking for hands-on support with your brand audit?
I have supported clients with Brand Audits that have helped them get super clear on what their rebrand next steps. It’s a low-investment offer that walks clients through what it is that could help them feel more confident and assured in their brand.
Like my Client Renée:
“[Jessica] was a great listener and encourager, and did a lot of great work behind the scenes, uncovering all the nooks I had created for myself and my business, and I could see the light. She gave me some other sites to see a vision we were creating together. Nothing I put in front of her was too big, and I always felt heard and seen. It’s like she knew who I was without really knowing me, and that’s why I could feel safe in sharing my challenges with her. She helped me see my way to the light and to a better way of being in a digital world that feels incredibly unfamiliar to me!”
Since then, Renée has gone on to revamp her website and messaging, had new brand photos done, and feels so much more confident knowing that her messaging is reaching her ideal audience.
You can schedule your Brand Audit with me here.
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