Companies undergo a rebrand for a number of different reasons, such as changing their offerings and requiring a new message to reflect this or needing to modernize their look to stay relevant with the changing times, or in some cases companies simply want to start afresh and turn over a new leaf and a rebrand can help them to reinvent themselves.

Although rebrands can be an effective marketing tool, they can also make or break a company and they are no small task to undertake. It’s often not until companies begin the process of rebranding that they realise how deeply rooted their brand is throughout their business, and simply redesigning their logo and brand elements is only the start of a company-wide change. So here are 3 things to consider in order to ensure that your rebrand runs as smoothly as possible. 

1. “If you don’t have the time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?” – John Wooden.
   
   Rebranding your company will take time, money and resources and you can’t afford to scrimp on any of them if you want to ensure that your rebrand is done right the first time around. Messing up a rebrand can cost a company a lot of money, and worse, when done poorly could even be the death of a business, so before you commit to the monumental task of changing the face of your company remember to sit back and assess whether you have the time required to do it properly, the money to fund professional help and the resources to allocate to the project to ensure it runs smoothly. If you don’t have one of these three elements which make up the triangle of success, then you could be at risk of a rebrand failure, or at the very least a stressful rebrand operation. It’s better to do it right the first time than fail and have to do it again. Making the decision to delay your rebrand until a more suitable time can be the difference between success and failure.
   
   
2. “Finding out exactly what went wrong is the key to preventing future debacles” – Chuck Grassley
   
   To ensure that your new branding works in the way that you want it to, you need to be clear about what it is about your old branding that was wrong in the first place. Was your old branding outdated visually? Did you fail to update with the times? Did your old branding have an unclear message? Was your branding indistinct from your competitors? Or did your branding not make sense to your target customers? Sit down internally and discuss your old branding, pick it apart and work out what worked and what didn’t to come up with a clear reason why you are now at the stage of requiring a rebrand. Understanding what was wrong with your old brand not only stops you from making the same mistake again but will also provide you with a foundation from which to build your new brand, and you may find that some components don’t need updating at all which can help with your brand consistency. 
   
   
3. “A budget is telling your money where to go, instead of wondering where it went” – Dave Ramsey
   
   We’ve already established that money forms an essential component of the triangle of success for a rebranding project and it’s important that this is set out in a clear budget to avoid any nasty surprises. One common mistake that companies make when budgeting for their rebrand is forgetting to add in the cost of updating all of their branded materials, this could be anything from updating their website, changing their email footer, removing vehicle wrap from their company cars and changing their employee uniforms to creating new advertising, updating their internal company documents and designing to marketing materials. When you sit down and consider how many parts of your business bear your branding it can feel overwhelming but it’s important to try and get a thorough understanding of how many things you may need to update in order to reflect your new branding so that you don’t end up in a situation where your company is using two different brands which can confuse consumers. If updating all of your company branded materials at once is going to consume too much of your budget then consider a phased approach whereby you update the essentials first and remember to communicate your rebrand to your customers so that they can bear with you while you make these changes.