Top 5 Signs It’s Time to Rebrand Your Wellness Biz (and how to do it!)
As we say goodbye to another year, we begin to take stock of all the ways our business prospered over the past 12 months — and all of the ways it didn’t. Oh, let us count the ways!
This may cause you to question everything you’ve built in your business – and in your brand!
In all likelihood, when you were just starting out, you probably didn’t even pay much attention to a “brand strategy”.
Perhaps you just had a logo made using your favorite colors, and came up with a few other brand elements (like that girly script font you’ve always admired) that you could spritz around your website and on socials.
However, as your business grows, a more intentional, focused, and refined branding effort will not only enhance the look and feel of being an expert in your field, but it will cultivate more trust with your followers, community, prospects, and clients.
But, not to worry – every interaction with your audience offers an opportunity to improve upon your brand. Keeping it consistent and aligned with your business mission and values is key, but it’s not always an easy task.
Plus, branding isn’t a one-and-done process either — it’s ongoing, ever-changing, and should evolve! Be sure to re-evaluate your brand every 6 to 12 months to ensure it still reflects your audience, niche, core messaging, and services, programs & products. I have personally had many, many iterations of my business and brand over the years!
Ok, this post is going to be quick & dirty (aka, a skimmer’s delight) because the signs of needing a rebrand, once I describe them, are probably going to become very obvious to you too!
On the other hand, I won’t leave you hanging as I’ll also be giving you some juicy tips for how to do your own brand analysis and how to take your rebrand, should you choose to do one, one step at a time.
5 signs that it may be time to rebrand your Health & Wellness Business
1 | You can’t seem to differentiate yourself or stand out from your competition, colleagues, and peers – you just seem to blend in. (And your #InstaGame just isn’t up to snuff because you don’t really feel you’re being consistent, visually or otherwise.)
2 | You’re embarrassed to talk about your business (or to send people to your website) and you find answering the question: “So, what do you DO?” difficult and downright awkward.
Here’s how I finally got comfortable answering that very question!
GUEST POST FOR WELLPRENEUR:
How I Got Over The Fear Of Telling People What I Do!
3 | You’re confused by your own brand – it feels diluted, scattered, or like you don’t even have a brand!
(And you can only imagine how others probably feel about it, and the lack of it!)
4 | Change happened – and it happened to you! This might mean that your entire business model has changed, your name no longer reflects your brand (or vice versa) or you’ve simply outgrown your business and/or your brand.
5 | Your programs, products & services don’t reflect your brand anymore and it’s left you feeling stuck in your prices – as if you’ll never be able to charge more or what you feel you need to in order to meet your financial goals.
Are you feeling affected by one or more of the above factors? Well, your business is probably in need of a re-brand!
How to pull off a do-over of your personal brand
QUESTION: Does your brand just need a little refreshing or a full ass-over-tea-kettle overhaul?
Well, it’s important to be clear about WHY you’re thinking about rebranding. What do you hope to get out of it? What do you want your people to get out of it?
Obviously, you want to achieve certain results in your business, and doing any kind of rebrand needs to be worth the effort, time, money, and possibly a bit of deep sighing thrown in for good measure 😉
A brand refresh might involve just redoing some of your visuals and branding elements like logo, colors, fonts, and the imagery that your audience sees and interacts with on your website, social feeds, products, and in print materials that you might produce.
Part of my own re-branding efforts, when I transitioned from “Making Lemonade” to “Krista Goncalves Co.” was to switch up my visuals. I have zero photography skills, and I have no interest in taking my own photos, so that means… stock photos for this brand! I was completely smitten when I came across Inspired Stock Shop.
See for yourself 🙂
However, if a core part of your business has changed (e.g. you’re entering into a new niche, targeting a different audience, selling a new signature product or program, etc), it might make more sense to do a complete overhaul of your brand.
After all, the ultimate goal is to (re)align with your brand’s values, and strengthen your brand identity – or maybe it’s to develop one in the first place!
Here’s how to get started with a holistic rebranding strategy
But, what is holistic branding?
It’s not some newfangled marketing term that I just made up – it’s actually an entire marketing philosophy. One that views small business – and all its juicy parts – as one single unit.
This comes from the idea that everything related to your business is interconnected and should all play well together. It’s marketing… unified!
“A business may choose to use a holistic marketing approach when they are under the strong belief that all aspects of its marketing strategy are interrelated.” ~ Investopedia
Using this concept of a holistic rebranding strategy, you’ll want to first ensure that you’re being really consistent, such that all of your branding elements (logo, colors, fonts, ads, etc.) and brand channels (digital – website & social and brick-and-mortar, if applicable) are cohesive.
Where branding is concerned, consistency + cohesiveness is paramount. Click To Tweet
YOUR VISION, MISSION & VALUES
If your business doesn’t already have a well-thought-out vision, mission, and list of values, take rebranding as an opportunity to develop these foundational components of your brand.
WHAT TO KEEP & WHAT TO DITCH?
Before you ditch everything from your existing brand, carefully consider what may still be working well for you.
It would be ideal to keep your business name, for example (especially if you started out with your own name). And if some of the other pieces of your brand can be retained, such that continuity is maintained when you rebrand = ideal situation.
Again, consistency + cohesiveness is the name of the (re)branding game. Plus, you don’t want to lose what you know really jives with your niche and resonates with your target audience.
RESEARCH YOUR MARKET & COLLABORATE WITH YOUR PEOPLE
Even if you’ve done this already, you have to research what’s working for your competitors (I prefer to say ‘colleagues’), and what the current market trends are. It would be helpful to know about what new trends in branding there may be too!
For example, does it seem like everyone is using that hot new shade of “girl boss pink”?
BRANDING PRO TIP: don't incorporate a new branding element if it doesn't truly speak to you and align with your overall brand identity - and you must consider the longevity of your brand too. Click To Tweet
Another tip is to involve your colleagues & prospects by asking their feedback on any new branding elements you’ve chosen or that you’re thinking of implementing.
Doing polls on your Facebook page and in your Facebook group or online community is a great start.
RELAUNCH & PROMOTE
Developing and implementing a thoughtful rebrand is hard work, so you should be proud and shout it from the rooftops!
Just make sure that when you’re ready to relaunch and promote your refreshed brand that you also share your reasons for rebranding with your audience = transparency.
Your people will be less confused by all of the new changes, and you’ll almost certainly have a positive response from your people by involving them in your brand story – from old to new!
But, what will a rebrand cost you?
Unlike multi-million dollar businesses and corporations, rebranding your small health & wellness business won’t hit you nearly as hard financially, but there are certainly some things to consider if you do decide to rebrand, especially if it’s going to be more involved than just redoing your logo!
Consider budgeting your time & money for the following:
- registration costs for changing the name of your business
- legal implications/reassessment of a rebrand; trademarks
- research costs (if any) and access to a test audience
- hiring a branding agency or professional brand strategist
- hiring a graphic designer, web designer, copywriter, and/or virtual assistant
- updating web, digital, and/or print materials
- the time that it’s going to take for the entire rebranding process, and the impact that may have on your business during that time
And at the end of the day… just remember that YOU are your most powerful branding asset, so be sure that you’ve figured THAT into your rebranding strategy too!
Before deciding on a REBRAND… have you done a full Brand Audit yet?
This might be the very first place for you to start!
(Of course this is included in your ‘premium’ membership!)