By Karen Weeks
The most successful brands are dynamic and ever-changing – constantly evolving to keep up with market trends and customer preferences. This evolution involves not only updating their product or service but also changing up their brand – their very identity – to make a bigger splash in the market and foster stronger, more meaningful connections with customers.
If you’ve been in the dental business for a while, it’s likely in your best interest to rebrand. The Florida Dental Association (FDA) explains why rebranding matters and how you could effectively rebrand below.
Why Does Rebranding Matter?
Brands that don’t change with changing times risk becoming obsolete and going out of business. It can and does happen to the most prominent brands: USA Today offers some examples here. Market conditions are never static – they change with changing customer values, innovations, preferences and other factors. With rebranding, businesses can remain relevant.
A good example is sustainability (or eco-friendliness). Some brands are being forced to become eco-friendly to satisfy eco-conscious customers (who will drop them otherwise). Another good example is being web-ready, as customers want businesses to be online (via websites, apps and other means). The Blue Frog Team explains other benefits of rebranding, like connection to a new audience, differentiating yourself from the competition and boosting your bottom line.
Below, we offer some suggestions on how to rebrand yourself effectively.
Create a Solid Rebranding Strategy
Rebranding is complicated. It’s not just changing your colors or business name – much more goes into it than you think. A rebranding plan can help you consider all the important details and give yourself concrete goals. Your rebranding strategy should revolve around your reason(s) for rebranding.
Do Market Research
Doing targeted market research can give you the data you need to create an effective rebranding strategy. You can gather customer feedback, check market trends, check up on the competition, pinpoint problems, and generally identify productive rebranding opportunities.
Reassure Current Clients and other Stakeholders
Springing a rebrand on customers (and employees or investors) out of the blue might not be the best idea. Many people don’t like change – they may lose faith in your company if you change everything without good reason. It’s important you get your stakeholders on board with the rebranding. Communicate the necessity and walk them through your overall strategy and vision. Give them a timeline. Don’t make significant changes (like a name change) without good reason.
Revamp Your Website
Websites are critically important in this digital age, where customers prefer to research businesses and transact online. Revamping your website to reflect your rebranding efforts is an excellent way to publicize and gain stakeholders’ buy-in. You may want to create a brand-new website to better suit your new image. Keep your old website for existing clients (to avoid disrupting your business).
Create Content About Your Rebranding
Create engaging and informative content to build trust and credibility with your audience as part of your dental business’s rebranding-focused content marketing strategy. This will ultimately lead to a raised profile, more transparency about the rebranding and increased sales. To learn more about content marketing, you can consult online resources.
Market Your Rebranding on Social Media
Marketing your new brand on social media is a good idea. It’s cheap, effective and makes you accessible and transparent. When publishing content on social media, encourage people to leave feedback and ask questions. Also, besides detailing your business offerings, share other valuable and engaging content. You can link this content back to your website.
Redefine Your Company’s Mission and Values
Your company’s mission and values are at the core of its identity. As your business changes, you may find that your initial mission or values no longer align perfectly. Recalibrating your mission, value and other aspects of your business culture is essential to rebranding. Ask yourself what is your current purpose for being and what matters to your company the most now.
Change Your Logo, Brand Colors, and Packaging
Every brand has a tangible sensory identity that comprises elements like logos, names, colors, slogans, tunes and packaging. You may need to recalibrate your sensory identity too. For instance, consider making your packaging eco-friendly or changing your business name to be more catchy and relatable. Make sure these changes are uniform across all channels. If you change colors on your packaging logo, for instance, change the colors on your website logo too.
Use a Market Automation Platform
Marketing (of which branding is a part) is a complicated process. Using software and tools can help you successfully meet your marketing goals. A marketing automation platform could keep your marketing team in sync, organize your marketing goals and avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. Look for a platform that features marketing analytics and allows you to customize campaigns and create automated tasks that respond to different customer needs throughout the purchasing cycle.
Keep Your Marketing Documents Organized
An efficient way to organize your marketing campaign materials is to convert your files to PDFs. This helps ensure your content is easily accessible and shareable while maintaining the formatting across various devices and platforms. When you go with a PDF maker, you can create a PDF from scratch or convert another file type (like Microsoft Word or Excel) into a PDF file.
You can effectively rebrand by having a clear branding strategy, communicating with your customers every step and ensuring your website and other channels effectively reflect the change. Using helpful software like a marketing automation platform can make it all more accessible, as can working with professionals (like web developers or branding experts).
The FDA is a statewide professional membership organization representing Florida-licensed dentists. Contact us today to learn more! 850.681.3629 or 800.877.9922
About the author: Karen Weeks is a Senior Lifestyle blogger. She struggled to find a new sense of purpose after retirement which made way to learn a new skill and took a computer course. She then created ElderWellness.net as a resource for seniors who wish to keep their minds, bodies and spirits well.
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