Ready to rebrand? Wait! Read this first.
Save time and money by addressing these key steps ahead of your rebrand or redesign.
Reading time: 5 minutes
Many times, founders bring me on board after a rebranding effort fails or because a website redesign project is going poorly.
Often, they blame the agency or design firm—they didn’t understand our audience, their messaging was not resonating, or they weren’t quite getting the design right.
They just spent $40-$100k on a rebrand and a brand new website, and no one is happy.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve come across this scenario (actually, I can, but it pains me to do so). Founders can easily avoid this scenario by taking a few simple but rigorous steps before hiring a design firm.
♟️Position first
Branding goes for the heart, positioning for the head. Branding is about emotional appeal, and positioning is hard, cold, logical, and unemotional. You cannot build a compelling brand if you don’t position your startup first. Positioning defines who you are, why you matter, and how you differ from your competitors.
Don’t know what positioning is and why you need it? Read these two posts:
How do you know your startup has a positioning problem?
Positioning at different stages of PMF
✍🏽Message development by market and audience is next
You should define your market segments and target audience personas as part of your positioning exercise.
Once you have a clear, strong positioning statement, test that positioning by developing messages targeted toward your market segments and target audiences.
For example, if your product targets SMBs and entrepreneurs, those two target markets have very different needs and behaviors. Suppose your buyer is a CIO, and the primary user is a head of design or a head of product. Those audiences have entirely different motivations for buying or using a product.
Your message should speak to their core motivations and behaviors. Test these messages first with your target audiences. Refine and fine-tune your message before proceeding to rebranding. This doesn’t have to take months and months. You can do this quickly and effectively by running A/B tests or sending a survey.
💼 Third, brand strategy
Most startups I work with overlook brand strategy entirely. How can you effectively redesign your brand without a strategy? A good brand strategy should precisely articulate the following:
Vision, mission, and principles
Brand promise
Brand values
Brand personality
Brand attributes and experience
Brand narrative
If done properly, this work will provide a great foundation for not only your brand and website designers but also the entire GTM team and leadership team.
This post might be helpful - Do you have product-story-fit?
⛔️ Note of caution #1
Full-stack agencies often claim to include positioning and brand strategy in their “rebranding” package. In my experience, they usually don’t deliver, especially for startups. Be very suspicious of agencies that claim to do it all unless they have a strong talent bench, in which case they will be expensive. You are better off working with an experienced marketer/consultant specializing in positioning and brand strategy.
🎨 Naming, logo, and brand development
Before you embark on a website redesign, it’s worth taking a hard look at your name and logo. Your positioning exercise may have revealed that the name you gave your startup when you founded it may no longer serve you.
To find a new name for your startup, you’ll need to engage with a naming agency or a naming consultant.
Even if you are happy with your name, you might decide that you need a new logo. You need a brand designer for this. A brand designer has different skill sets than a website designer and a product designer. Some designers may do all three, but you can be sure they spike in one. Make sure you get the right person for the task.
Brand design includes defining primary and secondary colors, fonts, iconography, illustrations or photograph style, and other design elements for your brand. Your deliverable should also include brand guidelines (these can be lightweight or extensive, depending on your stage and GTM strategy).
⛔️ Note of caution #2
While this is a qualitative exercise, it is not about what founders like or dislike. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your startup, product, market, and positioning! Unless you are a design-oriented founder, accept that you will not be good at this and let experts guide you.
👷🏽♀️Finally, website redesign
As you can see, a lot must happen before you begin a website redesign project. While you don’t need brand design to be 100% complete to start the website redesign (they can be done in parallel), you do need positioning and brand strategy to be completed before you begin this phase of the project.
⛔️ Note of caution #3
Founders underestimate the time and energy required for content development for a site redesign. Thoughtful content strategy and SEO must be part of your planning process. Otherwise, you’ll get a pretty site that doesn’t engage or convert. Remember to plan and budget for this.