Rebranding your business

A Great Big Rebrand

Rebranding your business is a huge undertaking (or should I say it’s a “Great Big” undertaking ?).  It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, but we knew we couldn’t just dive in head-first. We couldn’t just change our name, forget everything we’ve done, and move on (spoiler alert!) like Jesse Pinkman in El Camino. A big transition isn’t for everyone. In fact, we really would not recommend rebranding your business unless you absolutely know for certain that it’s directly affecting business and growth.  We are going to take you through a bit of how we made our decision, and maybe our story will help you make your own tough decision.

1. Confront the reasons for change

So why did we need to change? The process is a risk, but we knew if our own reasoning behind a rebrand was compelling enough, then it would be worth it in the end. For us the decision was actually very clear: we needed a name that was easy for clients and potential clients to talk about and remember. We can’t tell you how many times people misspelled, mispronounced or completely confused our business for another.  So to start, why do you need to change? Is it directly affecting your business? Make a list of the pros and cons before moving forward.

2. Consider your company values

The rebrand forced us to re-evaluate our business goals, our values, and things we thought we had settled years ago. We wanted to focus on what we were doing well and leave behind what we were no longer excited about doing. We took into account the 80/20 rule. A rebrand is a great opportunity to change for the better. What aspects of the business were we getting the biggest financial return from?  Also, where were we getting our biggest “feel good” return? What aspects of your business do you enjoy doing? What do you want to focus on moving forward?

3. Considering you marketing presence

As a digital marketing agency we had to consider our own marketing, SEO, and the overall implications for our web presence.  For SEO we had to update local listing directories. This included Google My Business, yellow pages, and all our social accounts. If it’s something you are considering, we recommend using this local listing tool from moz. Next we scraped all backlinks on our site and contacted external sites that link to our website about updating our name and links. We also redirected every single link on our old website to a corresponding page on our new website using 301 redirects.  It’s important to be thorough with this process because citation inconsistencies can be detrimental to search engine rankings. Marketers refer to your basic site information as NAP data. NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number and according to Moz, it is considered one of the most important factors in search rankings. To learn more about SEO, check out this intro to SEO article by our CEO, Josh.  

4. Get Feedback and anticipate reactions

Being able to anticipate questions or concerns will make the whole transition process much smoother.  Before going through with the rebrand we really thought through all the potential implications. We talked about it amongst ourselves daily and really let it sink in because once we went through with it, there was no going back. We reached out to clients, friends, and family about the change to get some feedback.  Maintaining our relationships with clients is top-priority. The last thing we wanted to do was have our customers lose any trust in us or make them feel like we were abandoning them. We contacted all of our clients personally to let them know about the change. We explained our reasoning to them, and the more support and positive feedback that we received about the rebrand, the more confidence we had to go through with all of the changes.

5. Consider everything when rebranding your business

There’s a lot involved in a rebrand that might not come to mind initially. In addition to what we already discussed we also had to create a new logo, a new website, and new social skins. We had to buy a new domain name, find new social handles, and change all of our email addresses. We had to look at the tax and legal obligations (we recommend getting your lawyer involved).  Lastly, new business cards and even new signs on the building and in the elevator. Your brand might be your business’s most important asset, so getting everyone involved is a must. We couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help, and having everyone collaborating gave everyone a bit of ownership of the new brand which is a very strong first step moving forward.

Looking forward into 2020

We don’t want to put down our former self, Grue & Bleen. The concept and ideas behind Grue & Bleen remain the same and they are very much ingrained in our company and culture. We will forever look back fondly at our times as Grue & Bleen when we were huddled around a table with our laptops in coffee shops working countless hours for our first clients. As our business grows year after year, we wanted a name that could grow with us, hence Great Big Digital was born. Rebranding our business has done really well for us thus far. We are seeing a boost in search engine rankings. We are also getting more phone calls. But most importantly, we as partners and employees feel good about our decision and we feel good about how we are moving forward in 2020 and presenting ourselves to the digital world.