Should You Re-Brand Your Business?

Branding is already a challenging process for B2B businesses, and it probably feels just as daunting if you're planning to re-brand your own B2B company. Because re-branding can be risky, you shouldn't jump into it without answering some major questions first.

You probably have both proactive and reactive reasons for wanting to re-brand, but changing what's familiar to your buyers is a big leap for them. Because it’s such a major change, you should ask a number of why questions before you commit to a re-branding campaign.

Do you know what those questions are, and do you know how to answer them? Let's take a look at those questions:

WHY DO YOU WANT TO RE-BRAND?

You obviously have a reason for re-branding, but have you analyzed it fully? Not all reasons for re-branding are due to negative experiences. For a B2B business, it could be refreshing to change things up, since competition in the field is continually intense.

Perhaps you’ve felt that you haven’t been standing out enough within a sea of competitors. While this is a universal issue with all types of businesses, it's likely more complex than that. It's possible that you expect major growth over the coming months or year, particularly into international markets.

For B2B businesses growing into international markets, re-branding could be a smart move. A re-branding campaign often helps bring better unity to a brand, ensuring that there aren’t any mixed messages across international borders.

In other cases, you might be adding new products to your brand that could look incongruous from what you have done before. Many international companies have had to re-brand because they expanded to include other products that nobody thought would’ve fit initially. It's not out of the realm of possibility that the new products you add become more popular than your old products. As a result, you may need a complete re-brand to change your identity in the marketplace.

WHY DO YOU NEED TO RE-BRAND?

If you've just merged with another major company, you obviously need to re-brand for the sake of better recognition. In this case, it usually means at least a logo change and a merge of your previous business name with your new business partner's name.

There are negative reasons that make re-branding a necessity. In some cases, you may need to re-brand or face eventual extinction as a B2B business. If you have a generational B2B business, you are probably especially cautious to protect all those years of hard work that have gone into your business.

You could also be facing negative publicity after one of your products had a defect that caused an injury. When buyers associate your brand name with something negative, your back is up against the wall on re-branding. It's at this point that you may have to completely reinvent yourself from the ground up. Yes, it may sound Herculean, but it's never out of reach with the proper professional help.