3 smart ways to prepare for a successful brand refresh
There’s nothing more exciting than starting a rebrand or brand refresh. You’ve been pinning website and colour palette inspiration for months, and visions of logos dance through your head. It’s going to be a clean slate, a fresh start, and the beginning of a whole new phase in your business…. right?
Well, YES! 77% of B2B marketers say branding is crucial for business growth — and with studies showing that it takes only 0.2 seconds to form a first impression of your website, it’s essential that your brand is optimized to instantly communicate what you’re about and connect with your ideal clients and customers.
But before you dive into mood boards, hold up for a hot second. As much as we all want to jump straight to the pretty stuff, there are a few critical things you’ll need to think through and prepare for BEFORE you hire a brand or web designer.
Investing in your branding is a big deal, and there are a ton of moving pieces involved. Covering your bases here will save you time, money, and stress as you move through the brand refresh process, so it’s essential to get it right.
Taking your time to think through and plan out what you’re trying to accomplish before you dive into tactics is how you’ll end up with a brand that’s beautiful AND strategically designed to achieve your unique goals and objectives for your business… whether that’s building an empire or creating a tiny-but-profitable brand with lots of margin for travel and time with your family.
In this post you’ll learn how to think through your strategy, message, and key deliverables so that when you reach out to a designer to start a branding project, you’re well prepared. And if you want to save this for future reference, grab my Brand Refresh Planning Checklist below. Let’s get started!
Know your strategy
I know, I know — this conjures up images of dry-as-dust business plan templates and 50-page documents gathering dust on a shelf. BORING.
But that’s not what I’m talking about, promise.
What I’m saying is: make sure you’re connecting your tactics to your overall business objectives. What is the marketing problem you are trying to solve here? How is it connected to your vision for your business, and the goals you want to achieve?
Having a simple but clear strategy for the future of your brand will help you to know why you are making the choices you’re making and stay focused on what matters most to you (i.e. step out of do-it-all hustle culture!). It’ll help you brief your designers well and give them solid direction — saving everyone a ton of time and stress during the design process. And it’ll help you and your designer(s), copywriter, and anyone else on your team make practical decisions that keep your brand’s entire experience consistent and clear.
There are a few things you’ll need to consider here:
Business goals and objectives
Where do you want to be in a year? 2 years? 5 years? What is missing or needs to change in order to get there?
You don’t need to have all the answers or every single step marked out along the way. But you do need to know what success looks like for you, so you can make sure you’re pointing yourself (and your designer!) in the right direction… and keep moving ahead even when you need to adjust along the way.
Your brand’s heart
What does your brand stand for? What are your vision, mission, and values? Why does what you do matter — to yourself and to your audience?
This is the north star for your brand, and it’s what every messaging and design decision needs to be anchored in. If you’re unsure about this, or if you feel like it’s changed (as often happens as your business evolves!), take the time to brainstorm your response to the questions above. It doesn’t need to be perfect or polished or fancy… but it does need to be clear.
A link you might find helpful: Vision, Mission, Values: Your secret weapons for successful brand and business strategy
Your brand’s perception
What does your audience think about your brand now? How would they describe you and what you do? What do you want them to be thinking and saying about you?
Putting this “before and after” into words can help to paint a really clear picture of what needs to change as you update your brand’s look, feel, and message. It will help you and your designer know what’s working really well, and where the gaps are that need to be addressed.
Know your message
Once you’ve briefed your designer on where you’re going (the strategy part), the next part is giving them direction on what your brand needs to say. Messaging goes way beyond words on a page. It’s about making sure that you’re telling a clear story about who you are, how you help, and why that matters — and integrating that story into your visuals, your content, and every element of the experience you’re creating for your audience.
Your designer will be expecting you to provide guidance on the core message you want to share with your audience. And while hiring a copywriter is a great way to help you develop and polish your message as part of the brand refresh process, they may only come on later in the process. If you start thinking now about these key areas you’ll be able to provide better direction and feedback from the get-go.
Your audience
It’s easy to focus on demographics here, but I encourage you to go deeper.
What does your audience want? What problem do you solve for them? Why should they trust you? What do they need to see from you?
Brand strategy is all about building trust… and trust is driven by connection. When you understand what your audience needs and how you help them, you can design an experience that speaks to that.
A link you might find helpful: Why you need an ideal customer profile (and how to create one)
Your brand’s personality
Infusing personality into your design as part of your brand refresh is essential to going from something that feels bland or outdated to something that truly feels like you. Plus, when you relate to your audience in a way that meets their needs, they’ll trust you and want to engage with you.
I find brand archetypes to be an incredibly helpful framework in setting the direction for your brand’s personality, and it’s something I use within my own brand strategy process. This resource from Iconic Fox is a great place to start if you want to learn more.
If you want to take a simpler approach, make a list of 5–10 personality traits you want your brand to embody. Are you funny or serious? Vibrant or understated? Intense or calming?
(There’s a longer list of prompts in the downloadable Checklist PDF below to get you started.)
Keep your audience in mind as you make your list. What do they need to see and hear from you? How can your brand’s personality build connection with them?
Your CTA
What do you want your audience to do with the message you’re sharing?
Do you want them to book a call with you? Sign up to your email list? Follow you on social? Refer you to their network? Attend an event?
This is really important if your project includes updating your website. Having a clear call to action (CTA) will help you to stay focused in the story you tell and make smart, strategic choices that support the business goals you identified earlier. And being able to give your designer a clear strategic objective to build the website around will make the entire project more streamlined and efficient.
Know your deliverables
The last thing to think about before you begin a brand refresh is to make a list of all of the elements you (and/or your designer) will need to create in order to make the refresh a success. The list can get real long, real fast, and so starting with a comprehensive brainstorm can help you pull together everything you’ll need from the start, keep a handle on your expenses, and avoid scope creep (trust me, your designer does not want to come back to you and say they can’t do this thing you’ve just added to the list).
It’s also helpful because some types of content have a domino effect, or we just don’t think about all the things we’ll need when we add something to the list. For example, if you’re redoing your website, you’ve certainly thought about the design, but have you thought about photography? Or who’s going to create your content?
So — last but not least, before you reach out to a designer to start a brand refresh, think about the deliverables you’ll want from them. I’ve included a (not exhaustive!) list below for you to get your brainstorming started.
If you’re doing a brand redesign:
Logos: How many would you like? Do you have specific needs or use cases that your designer should know about? At a minimum I recommend:
1 primary logo
1–2 alternate logos (for use when the primary logo won’t fit or space is tight — eg. a vertical option you can use in taller spaces if your primary logo is wide)
1–2 submarks (favicons, icons, etc.)
Colour palette
Mood board
Brand Style Guide
Business cards
Stationery (print / digital letterhead, note cards, envelopes, etc.)
Email signatures
Corporate documents / templates (Reports, client files, freebie / opt-in templates, etc.)
Signage
Social media graphics / templates (will you have photography you can provide for these if needed?)
Merch (mugs, pins, pens, journals, etc.)
If you’re redesigning your website:
Platform: Do you have a strong preference as to which platform (Wordpress, Squarespace, Showit, Shopify, etc.) you’d like to use?
SEO: How important is SEO to your marketing strategy?
Functionality: Are there specific components you need your website to include? Be comprehensive, but know which of these are “must haves” and which are “nice to haves”. A few ideas to get you started:
Blog
Shop
Email signups
Membership area
Client portal
Appointment scheduling
Multiple languages
Integrations: Does it need to work with any other services you use? E.g. Mailchimp, Calendly, Dubsado, etc.
Structure & Pages: What pages will you need? While your designer may be able to help you decide how to organize your site, going in with a list of the pages you’ll need will make things much smoother.
Photography: Will you need to hire a photographer, or do you have up-to-date photography that you can provide? Are your photos well-organized and high-resolution?
Copywriting & content: Will you produce your content yourself, or hire a copywriter to do it for you? Read this post for more information on how to plan and organize your website content.
A link you may find useful: How to start your new website project on the the right foot
Final words
That was a lot, I know! But the truth is that going through a brand refresh is a big investment that takes a lot of time and effort. It can have a massive effect on the bottom line of your business and it’s critical to spend the time up front in making sure that you’re prepared and ready to lead this project with any designers, copywriters, and other pros you hire to bring your big brand dreams to life.
Download the Brand Refresh Planning Checklist below to get the ball rolling…. or if you’re still not quite sure where to start, a Brand Retreat Day might be just the thing. It’s a one-day, step-away-from-the-hustle experience where we’ll work together 1:1 to cover off all of the elements I’ve talked about in this post and make sure that you’re feeling ready to get the most out of your brand refresh investment. Head over here to learn more!
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