Wondering how to launch a rebrand? The rebranding process takes research, brainstorming, and, most importantly, planning. If the rollout of your new brand is not well planned and executed, all of your hard rebranding work will not be worth it. 

So the question is, how do you nail a rebranding launch to preserve your brand recognition? The answer: by communicating and planning! In this blog, you’ll learn how to flawlessly execute your rebranding launch by planning and communicating the right information to the right audience.

How to Successfully Launch a Rebrand in 7 Steps

Whether you are rebranding or launching a new product, having a plan is critical.  These seven steps will help you perfectly launch your new brand. But before you jump in, make sure your new branding is up to snuff by checking out our guide to creating your brand strategy. 

Step 1. Choose a Date

The first step is to choose your launch date. When selecting your launch date, you have to set a realistic timeline. If your company’s birthday is coming up in three weeks, and you want to launch your new brand on that date, you need to decide if that’s actually doable. Three weeks is probably not enough time to prepare everything depending on the scale of the project. 

Step 2. Identify Brand Touchpoints 

Your brand appears internally and externally. All of your internal documents (such as templates, onboarding training, etc.) and your external documents and communication (such as email signatures, signs, social media handles, etc.) need to be updated to represent your new brand. To make sure your new branding is consistent, you need to identify all the places your brand appears so that you can update each one. 

Step 3. Identify Who Needs to Know About Your  Rebranding

Telling your customers that you are rebranding is crucial to having a successful brand relaunch. Before you can tell them, you need to know who to tell. Spread the news to your previous clients or customers, but don’t stop there! Anyone related to your company needs to know about the exciting change, including employees, shareholders, customers/clients, social media followers, and newsletter subscribers. 

Step 4. Decide When to Tell Each Audience

Tell your employees about the rebranding before sharing the news with your Instagram followers. However, you don’t have to wait until the official day of your launch to tell your Instagram followers. You may want to promote the launch by hinting at what’s coming to build excitement. That could mean posting a story a week before the launch and telling your followers to keep their eyes open for a big announcement. You can also stir the pot by asking them to guess what the announcement is about. You could create a countdown on your story a few days before the launch. Finally, on the big day of the rebranding launch, show them all your new branding and explain why you updated your brand. To flawlessly nail your launch, create a calendar with specific dates for when to tell which audience. This will help you stay on top of your rebranding as well. 

Step 5. Decide How To Tell Each Audience 

For some audiences, it’s easy to figure out how to tell them. For example, the best way to communicate with your social media followers about your relaunch is to post about it on social media. Telling previous customers who aren’t necessarily following you on social is a bit trickier. You can email them, create an ad campaign, or show an announcement on your website. 

Step 6. Decide What to Tell Each Audience

At this point in the process, you have identified each audience and decided when and how to tell each audience. Now, you need to decide what to say to them. That doesn’t mean not telling someone about your new name– that represents how you will tell the “why” of your rebranding efforts. Your Twitter followers will need a quick explanation, whereas your email subscribers could be interested in hearing the whole story. What you say in the announcement needs to make an impact, so don’t be afraid to spend time drafting your new branding announcement. 

Step 7. Review and Revise

At this point, you’ve got a solid plan for what to say, when, and how. Let’s now make sure that your project goes perfectly. Rebranding is a big deal, so you don’t want to make any errors. In your review, make sure the calendar you have made is realistic so you can stay on track. Ensure that all your internal and external audiences are informed and that every place your brand appears is documented. This will ensure that everything will be updated on the launch date. 

Rebranding Launch Tips

• Promote your launch. Don’t be afraid to post more than once about the launch. Hint that you have big news before revealing that a rebranding launch is coming up. 
• Stick to your calendar. Changing your social media profile image to your new logo before your announcement will confuse your audience. They may even unfollow you because of it!  Make sure to stick to your well-thought-out calendar so that you don’t confuse people. If you are tempted to tweak some rebranded material, don’t do it! Instead, tell your audience you are excited about your big announcement. 
• Don’t forget your old brand. This might sound a bit weird, but if you dump your old brand on your launch date, people will be confused. On your website, you may want to include a pop-up saying, “We’ve rebranded! Even though we are now called XYZ, we are the same company as ABC”.

Takeaways

Launching a rebranding campaign is an exciting but scary task. As fun as it is to give your company a makeover, rebranding is a huge deal. To make sure that everything goes smoothly, plan, plan, plan! By following these seven steps, you will seamlessly launch your rebrand.

Thinking about rebranding? Reach out to us to decide if it’s the right call. If so, we can help you flawlessly execute your relaunch. Just click the button below to sign up for a 30-minute complimentary digital strategy session.