4 Must-Ask Questions Before (You Even Think About) Rebranding
So your brand is blah (or non-existent) and it’s time to update it. Congratulations! You’re about to make a fabulous investment into the future and the growth of your business.
But wait—it’s not time to start searching for brand designers yet. Before you even think about rebranding your business, there are a few critical questions to be answered. These questions will ensure your search for a brand designer is seamless, bringing clarity to your process and making the engagement process pleasant for all.
Let’s dive into these 4 must-ask questions before you even think about rebranding your business:
1. What am I hoping to accomplish by rebranding my business?
While “making my brand look better” is a fair goal, what will make your rebranding process more effective (and therefore a more profitable investment) is determining specific goals you hope to accomplish. A strong brand designer will ask this question and need your answer to help them identify what specifically isn’t working with your current branding that you’d like to improve upon.
First, name specific, measurable goals you hope to achieve with your business rebrand.
Are you hoping to attract higher-paying clients? Increase your sales? Earn a specific revenue that will allow you to bring on another team member or retire early? Put measurable metrics behind those goals, too. By how much do you want to increase your average spend per customer, or at what price point do you want to book new projects? What’s that specific dollar amount of revenue that will enable you to retire early? The more tangible, the better as this will allow you and your future brand designer to understand the scale of your ambitions and what specifically is at stake with your rebrand.
Next, name the issues with your current brand or trouble areas with your business that you’re hoping your rebrand will resolve.
Are you lagging in attracting qualified leads to your website? Does your current brand reflect an older version of you or your brand that no longer positions you as you wish? Identify the pain points you specifically hope to address—for instance, if your website isn’t converting leads into clients, make sure you don’t just invest in a brand and then neglect a website redesign.
Keep in mind that the problem you think is the problem might not actually be the problem.
I’ve often sat down to chat with potential clients who initially inquired about one service, noting some things they’d like to resolve, only for us to continue talking and discover that there’s really another issue that should be addressed. For example, they’ll say their website needs a redesign but they haven’t yet realized that their brand messaging is what’s turning people away.
Finally, remember that any problems you may think are irrelevant to your rebranding actually may be very relevant! Things like decreased sales, low price points, or lack of referrals all have much to do with your brand. Don’t hold back when identifying pain points you’d like to resolve with your rebranding efforts: everything is fair game.
When it comes time to select a brand designer to partner with you in rebranding your business, you’ll want to find someone who will help you identify these goals and uncover the root issues you hope to resolve.
The right person who is worth your investment will care more about helping address those pain points and accomplish those goals through the magic of a solid, strategic brand than about simply dressing up a broken brand.
2. What kind of brand designer should I hire to rebrand my business?
Asking the question, “Who should I hire to rebrand my business?” is akin to asking the question, “How much does a rebrand cost?” (which, coincidentally, is the next question below).
The answer is: it depends on what you’re looking for.
Brand designers come with all levels of experience, expertise, niches, price points; not to mention styles, personalities, and values. It can feel daunting to search for someone you can trust, someone you connect with, and someone who will do the job well!
The right brand designer is the one who’s right for you.
First, ask yourself what’s important to you. Are you looking for someone with a specific personality? Do you value someone who specializes in your industry? Is it important to find someone who designs in your ideal style?
Next, decide if you’re looking for someone who will walk alongside you as a partner or consultant or if you’re looking for someone to simply accomplish this task for you. The biggest difference between these two ends of the spectrum is price point: more budget-friendly designers may need you to manage the project and complete more homework, whereas a brand designer who serves as a consultant will provide a more professional, elevated process at a higher price point. We’ll touch on this more in the point below.
Next, are you looking for someone multidisciplinary who will handle every bit of your redesign, or do you prefer someone who specializes in one particular role? The former will allow you to step out of the process completely and unify your redesign (brand strategy, brand visual identity design, website design, copywriting, and more) whereas hiring multiple specialists will require you to serve as creative director tying it all together.
Finally, make sure to decide ahead of time if you are looking for someone to partner with you beyond the brand for long-term support. In this case, you’ll want to find someone who offers retainers or ongoing brand management or design support, and this question can be asked in your initial discovery call.
There’s no right or wrong answers to these questions: every client has different needs, desires, and goals for what they’re looking for in a brand designer.
What’s most important is to understand ahead of time what’s important to you—and what some of the implications are of your preferences—before you seek to engage a brand designer to rebrand your business.
3. How much do I want to spend on my rebrand?
Oh boy—this is a loaded question. One of the most impossible questions to answer is, “How much does a brand design cost?” or its cousin, “How much should I spend on my rebrand?”.
Similar to the point above: it just depends on what you’re looking for. You can find brand design for $300 or $30,000 or anything in between.
There’s no set market value for brand design, as pricing depends on what’s included, the level of expertise of the designer or agency, and most of all, the value the client will receive.
(Hint: the more you spend, the more value you receive. But you knew that already.)
However, I’d like to share a few helpful tips to determining an appropriate budget for your unique rebrand:
Know your finances—your profits and revenue for the past year, and projected revenue for the next 12 months and financial goals for the next 5 years. Your investment should be relative to your business’s financial situation; the more financially successful your business (or the more ambitious your goals), the more you should plan to invest.
Our studio advises, as a rough guideline, to expect to invest between 2%–10% of their anticipated revenue goal from the rebrand. Some agencies recommend 10–15% instead. So if, with the help of your rebrand, you expect to hit $500,000 in revenue this year, you should plan to invest $10,000–$50,000.
Do your research on pricing now so you can plan for the investment. If you can’t afford four or five (or more) figures on a rebrand, don’t immediately pursue cheaper options—consider setting financial goals to save up for the investment.
Branding isn’t an expense; it’s an investment.
Remember that you’re not spending money, you’re investing it back into the growth and success of your brand. You will get back what you put into it, and the more you invest, the more you’ll reap.
If you’re sweating at making such an investment, here are a few final tips to make rebranding affordable for anyone:
Find a brand designer who will work on a payment plan. Many agencies or designers, such as our studio, break project costs into milestone payments that are spread out during the project duration. Some may even be willing to extend payments after the duration of your project at an additional cost. This makes it easier to fit the cost into your business cash flow, making it simply another line item every few weeks.
Using the tips above, determine a ballpark budget (I recommend setting a range or a max budget and being flexible with your expectations) and save up as much as needed before hiring a brand designer.
Alternatively, sign and pay your deposit with the brand designer of your choice but engage their services for a future date. Not everyone will be willing to make such an arrangement, but some may be willing to reserve your project availability for a later start date if you pay your deposit ahead of time.
Pricing is always relative to something else.
The most important thing to remember is that pricing is relative. An “expensive” brand is only expensive because it’s being compared to something else. That’s why it’s helpful to relate your rebranding budget to your financial goals, because that makes the amount you spend more objective than trying to compare market values or ask how much a rebrand costs.
4. When do I want to launch my rebrand?
The final must-ask question before rebranding is your due date: when do you want to launch your rebrand?
For the sake of all designers out there, please, please don’t wait to hire a designer at the last minute! Many studios and agencies come with a waitlist of weeks or months due to demand. Or even if this isn’t the case, the rebranding process will take at least a few weeks, if not months, so even engaging a brand designer tomorrow doesn’t mean your launch can happen next week.
Make sure your due date isn’t arbitrary but is intentional. Nothing will frustrate your brand designer like demanding a specific launch date only to later say that it didn’t actually matter! Remember that rushing the process will yield rushed results, ones that may not last or may not be as strong as what you could have had with a more relaxed process.
Rushing the redesign process will yield rushed results.
If you want to launch your new brand design with the new year, begin engaging services in the early fall. If you have a product you want to launch alongside your rebrand, make sure to allow plenty of time for your project plus marketing efforts before your product launch. Or if you just want this done as soon as possible, be prepared for the process to take a few weeks and trust that the wait will be worth it.
So when you’re planning to rebrand your business, make sure to stop and answer these must-ask questions before engaging a brand designer’s services. Trust me, the process will be easier, more fulfilling, and your results will be more effective!
