How Can Rebranding Lead to Sales Growth?

In today’s world, small business owners are often justifiably concerned about the ROI of every single business activity. Marketing experts have long espoused the benefits of having a strong brand. However, recently marketers have been called upon to justify their activities, including their brand-building efforts. Ultimately, small business owners need to know: What return can I get from a branding or rebranding campaign?

First, let’s examine what rebranding is not. There are elements of rebranding that will, as standalone activities, likely have little or no effect on your sales growth.

The good news is that, when executed properly, a rebranding campaign can lead to increased sales.

Rebranding is not simply a logo change.

Rebranding is not just a name change. (As a matter of fact, name changes can sometimes have a negative impact on sales, depending on the strength of your existing brand, as customers familiar with your old name may have trouble finding you online under your new moniker.)

Rebranding is not just creating a new tagline.
So when does rebranding drive sales?

When more relevant messaging is delivered to the target audience.

Your goal should be to increase awareness of your company, products and services among within your target market. Of course, this may require extensive research on your part in order to know and understand exactly who your potential customers are. It also requires crafting a message that will make your product or service preferred over the competition.

When your media budget increases to support a rebranding campaign.

Often, rebranding will only be effective as part of a larger marketing plan that includes other components, such as advertising, trade show attendance, a greater social media presence, and increased media spend. However, be careful not to attribute an increase in sales to rebranding alone without considering how the other components may have impacted results.

When quality SEO is implemented to counter a decline in website traffic.

Google still owns the online search market and many online websites are still recovering from the Google Penguin updates. With these updates to their search algorithm, Google has sought to combat SEO practices that artificially increase page rankings. In response, many websites have countered by undertaking a “rebranding” in an effort to maintain or increase traffic. These efforts, accompanied by quality search engine optimization (and often a brand new website and URL), has been successful for many.

The good news is that, when executed properly, a rebranding campaign can lead to increased sales. However, it’s important to have a clear strategy (i.e., targeted messaging) and sound measurement tools in place if you hope to successfully rebrand.