5 Tell-Tale Signs You Need to Break-Up with Your Brand

Determining whether or not you need to rebrand is a very difficult decision. One, that bears a lot of resemblance to breaking up with someone. There are a lot of important, and at times, very personal factors you need to take into consideration. The first thing you might think of is your past — all the good times you had together. For example, when you first decided what your logo would look like. Or, your first date. There are things that mean a lot to you that make it harder to let go. But what you really need to consider is if it’s healthy for you and supports the direction you want your company to go in.

Analyzing Your Attachments

Is the attachment you’ve formed with your brand one that you love because of what it allows you, as a business owner to do? Do you want to keep it because it’s enabling the growth and proliferation of your company? Or, are you clutching onto your current brand identity because it reminds you of what it felt like to be a young and ambitious company? And maybe, you’re having trouble letting go because it was the same brand identity that got you where you are today. But whatever the reason, you have to consider one very important factor — in order for a company to grow, it has to change. Which includes rebranding at the appropriate time.

Take a shark in captivity for example. You may have heard that a shark will only grow as big as its environment allows. If you keep it in a relatively small tank, it will only grow about 8 inches compared to the 8+ feet it can grow if raised in the ocean. A brand is no different. If you keep it in the same environment it has always been in, you may never know how big it can really grow. Sure, it might be a perfectly healthy shark, with a good diet and sharp teeth, but keeping it in that same tank and that same environment will prevent you from ever seeing how big it can really grow.

What Does Rebranding Mean?

Rebranding doesn’t mean letting go of your company. It’s about rehabbing it and making the good parts better while getting rid of the bad. You’re worried about losing the tenacious energy and ambition that your original brand resembles? One conversation with a digital marketing and branding agency like ours and we’ll give you 10 different ways to reform and shape that energy into a new and improved brand.

But the hard part isn’t the actual rebranding. In fact, that’s the fun part — when new ideas are formed and monumental concepts are bred. The hard part is determining when that rebrand actually becomes necessary and being able to pull the trigger at the appropriate time.

So, to help you figure out when it truly is time to pull the plug and end the toxic and fruitless relationship with your current brand, we’ve designated 5 tell-tale signs that show you’re in need of a rebrand.

1. Social Media Plateau

One of the first signs that you’ll notice in a dying brand is an abrupt and seemingly endless plateau of social media activity. Most social media platforms are great at providing in-depth analytics and data that shows how your accounts are performing and to what extent users are interacting with it. As any digital marketing agency will tell you, FOLLOW THE DATA. The graphs that Facebook provides are very clear and easy to read. If your user engagement and follow-rate have dropped off severely over the past few months, you may need to look into the content you’re publishing. Or, the brand identity you’re exuding.

2. The Excitement Isn’t There Anymore

Listen, as brand consultants and growth strategists in the Austin area, if we’re not excited about what we do, we can’t expect our clients to be excited either. And if you’re not excited about your brand and company, there is absolutely no way you’ll be able to get your customers excited. Sure, if you work a 9-5 in corporate America and hate your job, odds are you can probably still push through it and finish what needs to be done. But not in the fluctuating and impassioned world of brand building and company development. You need to wake up each day with a level of enthusiasm and exuberance that can’t be matched. If that’s something you have to force, then it might be time for a rebrand.

3. SALES – Your Bottom Line

Obviously, your sales and how much profit you’re making are going to be very clear indicators of how your brand is performing and whether or not you need the assistance of a seasoned growth marketing agency. Sure, there are a lot of reasons why your sales might be plummeting, many of which might not have anything to do with your brand. However, if you have the insight and knowledge to analyze and break down your sales cycle, and some insights from Top Strategies To Boost Digital Marketing Conversion Rates, you might just find that your brand is the reason why sales have slowly declined. In fact, we provide a brand positioning analysis that does just that.

4. Keyword and SEO Decline

When it comes to search engine optimization, there are numerous variables and factors that go into how well your website scores. So, even though we’ve included this in our list of rebranding warning signs, don’t die on this hill. At the same time, a weak and decreasing SEO rate — loss of keywords and decreasing values — might be a sign that fewer people are coming to your site and interacting with it. That there are fewer people interested in your content and website. But again, there are several reasons why your SEO might be declining. So don’t consider a rebrand solely on this factor before consulting a growth consulting agency with experience in SEO.

5. The Cessation of New and Fresh Ideas

One of the most important responsibilities of a high-engaging brand is the ability to incite and inspire fresh and exciting ideas. Just how a motor influences the performance of a car, a brand influences the performance of a company. If you don’t have a high-powered, fully-functioning brand pumping and revolving inside of your company, you can’t expect it to produce content and stimuli that make your customers want to spend their money on you. The important factor to consider in this instance is the difference between creative-blocks and a decaying brand. Both will impede you from producing high-quality content. But the former is temporary, while the ladder only gets worse as time progresses.

Fall In Love All Over Again

At this moment, I want you to think about the time you decided to create your brand. The emotions you felt and the drive you had to build something that was truly yours. Sure, some business owners choose to build a brand and company as a means to an end — to make money. But most of us, the Posse of Impassioned Pursuers, P.IM.Ps if you will, start brands and companies because we love it.

We work with HausFli because we fervently believe that if someone wants to start a life in a tiny house at the bottom of a mountain, then God dang it, we’re going to help them do it. We work with companies like Mercury Mosaics because if someone wants to create a 30×12 ft. mural of John Lennon made from handmade clay tiles, then we’re going to be the ones who help them make it happen.

Brands are where dreams are made, not where they die. So if you’re starting to lose the love and luster that you originally felt about your brand, then you may want to come talk to us. Because at Rock Candy Media, we help companies build brands that they fall in love with — over and over again.