A business rebrand requires a huge outlay of time, money and effort, so obviously, you want as many eyes on your corporate rebrand as possible. Today, we’re talking about how to promote your business rebrand to both internal audiences inside your company and external audiences outside it, from asking for feedback to getting new branded merchandise:
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How to Promote Your Business Rebrand Internally
When you consider promoting your new rebrand, you probably think about the people outside your company — but your first audience should be internal. Follow these four tips to get your employees onboard with a rebrand:
1. Let people know some changes are coming
Nobody wants to have a company rebrand dropped onto them out of nowhere. Once you’ve decided to move ahead with a rebrand, send a memo to everyone in the company and let them know that changes are in the pipeline. Tell them what agency you’ll be working with (if any), as well as what the expected timeline is for completing the rebrand so they can start mentally preparing for the changes. You should also have a rationale ready for why the brand change is necessary, whether that’s an upcoming anniversary or the acquisition of another company.
2. Be transparent and answer questions
Most people don’t like changing up the status quo, so you are probably going to get some skepticism about the rebrand if not outright pushback. Be patient and ready to answer people’s questions about what changes will be made and why they are necessary. Remember that the rest of the company wasn’t part of the whole decision-making process and aren’t privy to the same information that you are, so the rebrand announcement might feel a bit sudden to them, and they are going to react accordingly.
3. Source ideas from within the company
Your employees can be big advocates for the rebrand, but you need to get their buy-in first. One way to do that is to source ideas for the rebrand early on in the process before you even have mock-ups ready to show. If you have a smaller team and trust them to give you design feedback, then consider getting feedback from them on various rebrand options once your design team or agency has something ready to show. Remember to be diplomatic about the feedback and don’t reject anything at the moment, even if it doesn’t resonate with the direction that you want to take the brand — the point is to make employees feel heard.
4. Reveal it internally first
When you’ve finalized the rebrand and are ready for the grand unveiling, do it internally first. Not only will this allow you to get a practice run in before you go live to the public, but it will also show your team that you consider them your first and most important audience. It would be a bad look to show the public your rebrand before you reveal it to your company, so do an interval reveal before you roll out the rebrand across all your platforms.
How to Promote Your Business Rebrand Externally
Now that your employees are on board, you can start to focus on outside audiences. Here are four ways to promote your new rebrand outside your company:
1. Tease your followers to build excitement
As you draw closer to your official launch date for your rebrand, build some hype around it by teasing it on social media and on your website. Drop hints for your followers, share color palettes, and post a tiny snippet of the new logo — whatever feels in keeping with your brand’s online personality. Have your marketing teams work closely with your agency or design teams, so they are synced up about promoting the roll-out ahead of time.
2. Reach out to the media
Promoting your rebrand on your own channel isn’t your only option: Public relations provides another great opportunity to spread the word. You should have a press release ready to send out to media contacts and some pre-written quotes ready to go in case a media outlet asks for them on short notice. You should also have someone (or multiple someone) who can be available to talk to the press if they want a live interview. The head of marketing or branding is a great option. If you worked with an agency, you might want to include one of their people in the interview or quotes, as well, to give them a shoutout.
3. Tell the story of your rebrand
Like your employees, the rest of the world will want to know why you bothered to do a rebrand and why you’re hyping it up. As part of the rebrand announcement, consider putting a press release on your website that tells the story of the rebrand. Don’t just talk about why you decided to move forward on the rebrand: Explain how the different elements of the rebrand all come together to form a cohesive whole. Telling a narrative like this is a powerful and more memorable way to promote your new rebrand and gain some marketing traction.
4. Get new promotional items
Part of the fun of a rebrand is ordering updated corporate swag with your new logo and colors. You can promote the swag on social media and — if you make it available to the general public — encourage them to buy it from your online store. If you want to keep things more exclusive, you can host a giveaway of the new promotional products for a few select people; they can earn entries by following your accounts and re-sharing your rebranding announcements. And, of course, don’t forget to give your new company some of the new swag, as well, so they don’t have to wear the outdated stuff.
Follow these tips to promote your new rebrand locally, regionally, nationally and even globally. Congrats on your new rebrand, and good luck with promoting it!
