How your small-to-medium-sized company can invest in an effective rebrand

If your small-to-medium-sized company seeks aggressive growth, you already know that rapid growth involves its own set of unique problems to solve. And if we had to guess, we’d say that part of your firm’s recipe for growth includes acquisitions. This means your team is likely in the position of navigating one or more rebrands—even if you are rebranding the acquisition into your existing brand architecture.

Rebranding represents a challenge for companies of every size. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses face many of the same issues as large companies. In order to effectively rebrand, any company must implement far-reaching changes across an entire organization (or organizations) to fully embed a new brand with employees, external stakeholders, partners—and of course, convert all your branded assets. That’s no small feat, and the logistics involved can be overwhelming. However, the benefits of rebranding well are considerable and long-lasting.

Small and medium-sized businesses know they would benefit from expert guidance in implementing their rebrands. But they often assume that this sort of assistance (the kind BrandActive has extended to Fortune 2000 companies for over twenty years) is out of reach financially.

But rebranding well isn’t a function of size. It’s a result of understanding the strategic value of rebranding and committing to doing it well. Some large brands have it down to a science, while others flounder despite the resources they spend.

The truth is that middle-market companies can rebrand effectively — and they can do it with the same consultative expertise as major corporations.

The true value of an effective rebrand for small and medium sized businesses

Rebranding in an optimized manner means executing a comprehensive, orderly plan that keeps your rebrand on time and on budget. Your company stands to benefit from an ideal rebrand in three major ways.

A more cost-effective rebrand

Rebranding is costly – whether it’s the direct asset cost, the resource time, and/or the opportunity cost. The first benefit you stand to realize is cost savings for the rebrand itself. It makes sense. If your team is scrambling to put all the pieces of a rebrand in place, you won’t have the time or bandwidth to make the smartest, most cost-effective decisions. Proper planning yields important savings. It gives you the opportunity to strategically structure your rebrand so you save money accomplishing the same set of goals. For example, an ideal rebrand implementation plan takes advantage of asset prioritization, inventory reductions, and existing operational cycles in order to transition assets in the most resource-efficient way possible.

These individual calculations can add up to major savings. As a case in point, companies that partner with BrandActive save an average of 10-35% on rebrand implementation.

Year-over-year operational savings

Optimized rebrand implementation also yields year-over-year operational savings. That’s because rebranding well isn’t just about ticking all the necessary items off your to-do list as you transition assets from an old identity to a new one. It represents a very real opportunity to get your brand’s house in order.

Rebranding well requires you to carefully assess your collection of branded assets, portfolio of vendors, and operational brand governance infrastructure. It’s the perfect time to rationalize, streamline, amass new economies of scale, and iron out your brand governance process. Do this, and you’ll further offset the costs of rebranding as well as achieve new savings for years to come.

Internal buy-in and cohesive brand deployment

Finally, when you rebrand in an optimized manner, you have a much better chance of winning internal buy-in for your new brand. In well-planned rebrands, employees have a clear understanding of roles, responsibilities, and the new brand identity. And that means your entire team will present a unified customer experience reflective of the new brand’s core values and unique promise.

The path to optimized rebrands for small and medium-sized companies

Small and medium-sized companies typically don’t have the same level of internal resources as bigger brands. They are also less likely to have past experience managing rebrands. In order to realize the full market value of their rebranding efforts, small and medium-sized businesses must work smart. They must quickly mobilize a rebranding team and gain an understanding of processes, techniques and tools that enable success.

The good news is that, with the support of technology, outside counsel, and internal resources, middle-market companies can rebrand in an optimized manner, including thoughtful rebrand implementation plans, sound budgets, and accurate timelines. When BrandActive partners with small and medium-sized companies, we structure a program that guides them every step of the way while working within their fiscal constraints.

Small and medium-sized businesses ready to meet the challenge of an effective rebrand can start with these tips.

• Create a complete and accurate inventory of rebrand implications. The implications of a rebrand go far beyond the conversion of branded assets. (And branded asset conversion is nothing to sneeze at.) You must first gain a full and detailed understanding of all the implications and dependencies that flow from the decision to rebrand. This extends beyond marketing collateral and signage and touches on every corner of your business, from HR to legal to distributors and third-party dealers. For example, you may need to file dozens or even hundreds of new contractual agreements with vendors as a result of your legal name change. Until you’ve identified every implication, you can’t build a comprehensive rebrand plan.
• Understand the business data behind your branded assets. Next, you must develop an understanding of the business data — including inventories, operational cycles, and contracting terms — behind your branded assets. For example, it may make the most sense to deplete existing inventory before pulling the trigger on producing rebranded assets.
• Develop and assess multiple brand transition scenarios to find the best fit. Finally, you’ll want to pull together all these details, together with the associated costs, to assess multiple options in order to determine the optimal solution for your situation.

Want help navigating the rebrand process to meet your rebranding needs and capitalize on new opportunities in the process? We’d love to learn more about your goals, show you how we have helped other companies like yours, and define the right program to provide you the help you need.