First impressions are crucial for developing brand loyalty. Whether a customer will return to your brand hinges on making that all important first experience a positive one. So, along with a top quality product or service, you really want to hone in on building a strong and visually appealing brand. Let’s take a look at what that means.

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Launching a Brand

Research shows that customers only take seven seconds to make an opinion about a brand. How can businesses make the right first impression when rebranding or launching a brand?

Start with the foundations

When making the right first impressions as a brand it's always important to start with the foundations. Ensuring you have done your homework to really understand your brand values, what you’re out to achieve, and the target audience you’re looking to communicate with. These will act as your guardrails to ensure you connect with the people most likely to engage with your brand.

It’s not about you - it’s about your target audience

The trap that some people fall into is creating it to their own personal taste or someone they know that isn’t in their target audience. It’s also important to understand your niche and not target everyone, as this often leads to work that resonates with very few. Leveraging your brand foundations to form a strong visual identity that is consistent across all touchpoints goes a long way to building brand recognition.

Know your message

In addition, pushing your brand personality in a clear and compelling message that quickly communicates the unique value proposition of your brand will give you the best opportunity to make that right first impression.

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Rebranding

Rebranding is often misunderstood. What does the task truly entail and what role does customer experience play in the rebranding efforts?

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First, let’s clear up any misunderstanding around rebranding.

The overall process involves updating or changing the image of the brand which can include things like the logo, name, TOV and general visual identity.

The aim of the process is to better align with the company’s foundations including its values, mission and target audience or to distance itself from any previous perceptions about the brand, in turn resulting in some form of positive gain.

But how do you know a rebrand is right for your company? Check out a previous article that we put together about when it’s time to refresh: 5 Signs Your Business is Ready to Level Up its Look.

Take your customers with you

Customer experience plays a vital role in the rebranding process, as ultimately it will be the measure of success. Companies should always think about how embarking on a rebrand will affect their customer experience and how it will be received by their target audience.

It’s crucial to conduct research with your existing customers to understand how it will affect their perception of the brand and your offering. This information will help to make educated decisions about the rebrand and ensure your customer will receive it well. It’s also worth considering how the rebrand will be communicated to these existing customers.

Closing thoughts

To recap — when launching a new brand it’s important to start with the foundations, be consistent and communicate it clearly.

Rebranding is about aligning the brand image with its foundations to ensure it still resonates with the target audience. Customer experience is vital to keep in mind throughout the process, to ensure the existing customer base isn’t alienated and is positively received by the target market in general.

You can find other great design pieces like this on Spotlight DesignRush where our branding work for TAK will be featured in the coming weeks. This was a great project to be apart of and one we get asked about how the naming process works all the time. To find out more on this topic check out this article.

We hope this has been a useful read! We know our stuff because we’re a small design agency that’s here to help bring new life to both new and existing brands. Why not get in touch for a chat about how we could help get your business moving closer to your goal? Go ahead and shoot us a message using this form.