There are many reasons that a business might choose to rebrand itself: The company has gone through a merger, the business has evolved enough to necessitate a new approach to branding or it’s time for a fresh start on marketing and PR. It’s a big decision that requires lots of hard work, but it’s also a great opportunity for growth, positive change and new strategies.
Here are seven key points to pay attention to in your rebranding. From search engine marketing to communicating with your leads, these tips will help make sure your lead generation efforts stay effective and relevant.
1. Know the audience of your new brand.
Your post-rebranding audience may be pretty much the same as your old one, or it might include new markets, channels and demographics. Before you draw up your lead generation strategies, it’s critical to use your data tools to create a more complete picture of your new audience. If your rebranded business offers services that the old one didn’t, you want a clear idea of whom you’re selling those services to, why they need them and what that audience expects. These data points will help you better shape the voice and tactics of your new brand.
2. Take time to understand how your new branding can improve on what’s come before.
Try to get access to data from the old brand that will help you understand where the biggest opportunities for improvement are. Some good points to look for include:
- Conversion and click-through rates
- Demographic, geographic and behavioral profile data
- Lead scoring
- Engagement rates for different types of content
- Data from customer experience surveys
Whenever possible, try to get multi-channel data that will give you a better understanding of how different channels (such as organic search, PPC and social media) have been performing in the past. Once you’ve gotten this data, it’s worth spending some time with your analytics team to find out where your biggest opportunities lie.
3. Create an easy-to-understand summary of how your business has changed and what customers can expect.
You want to avoid confusing your customers, so it’s a good idea to create content that provides an easy summary of what’s changed about your business. Even a simple email blast can be effective in generating customer awareness that you’ve undergone a rebrand, and hopefully drumming up some curiosity while you’re at it.
When you’re creating content summarizing your rebranding, consider the following questions that customers are likely to ask:
- Why did your business rebrand?
- What can a customer expect from your new brand?
- If a customer has already been using your services, what can they expect to change, if anything?
- What new services or products do you now offer?
- Whom can the customer contact with questions?
Providing robust and useful answers to these questions will help your business maintain the customers it already has and continue to generate new leads.
4. If you’ve changed your name, use SEO to make it easy for leads to find you.
You don’t want to throw away leads from people who might be searching for your business’s old name, so make sure that you follow SEO best practices for name changes. Some of the most important ones include:
- Keep your domain name if at all possible. If not, make sure to set up a redirect.
- Update your business’s name in local search listings, on your website and on social media profiles.
- Ensure that you own relevant domain names and brand names online.
- Use Google Analytics data to determine what SEO obstacles your new brand name will need to overcome.
You may also want to use pay-per-click ad buys to direct customers searching for your old brand name to your new site. Bid on keywords related to your old name, and use the PPC ads to redirect customers to your new website.
5. Ensure that key platforms like websites and social media pages are ready to go.
A smooth and complete transition into your new brand will help inspire confidence in your customers that will translate to better leads. It’s critical that all aspects of your brand transition be accomplished at once—you don’t want a lead clicking through to an outdated page on your website or social media profile.
Make sure that your website and social profiles also include information on all relevant credentials for your business, including business service bonds that protect your customers and surety bonds that may be required by law. This information will help give your leads confidence that your new brand is trustworthy and legitimate.
6. Revamp your content to establish your new brand as an authority.
Rebranding is a great opportunity to create top-quality content that positions your company as an authority in your field. Creating a robust blogging and social media presence for your new brand is a great way to generate the SEO momentum that will help you generate more leads, more quickly.
If your business has expanded into new markets or is offering new products and services, blogging and social media posts offer great opportunities to show off these improvements. Make sure you’re leveraging effective tools like video content, infographics and interviews with industry insiders as well.
7. Keep in touch with your old leads and continue to nurture them.
Finally, rebranding is no reason to stop nurturing leads you’ve already generated. Leads who are more advanced in the sales cycle should be a priority—make sure your sales team is prepared to reach out and help explain the rebranding and that they’re equipped to provide the answers to questions your leads will ask. Email marketing is another good tool to use here since it allows you to automatically segment your leads and provide more in-depth explanations (or even special offers) to customers who are farther into the sales funnel. Rebranding is a great opportunity to generate excitement and enthusiasm, so take advantage of it!
Rebranding is an essential step in the journey of many businesses toward growth and success. Think of it as a new chapter—complete with new challenges, new audiences and new opportunities. The sooner and the more completely you can tackle these, the more effective your rebranding will be.