Are you currently going through or considering starting the rebranding process? This post covers announcing a rebrand intentionally for professional service providers, including what to update and how to share it with your community.
Why Rebrand?
There are many reasons why a law, financial, or consulting firm may consider rebranding. Here are a few common ones:
- You started with DIY branding, but your practice has since grown and evolved.
- Your branding blends in with others in your industry.
- You’ve changed your services or the type of clients you support.
- There isn’t consistency for your brand across your various channels.
Still not sure if you need to rebrand right now? Click here for a full blog post exploring the 12 signs it’s time to rebrand.
Rebranding Examples
You may remember the nationally-recognized rebrands for Starbucks and Petco. When you’re a massive brand, people are often hesitant to accept change. These companies were met with immediate backlash, though they are all thriving today after their rebranding efforts.
On the flip side, rebrands for smaller businesses (such as small or local practices) are often met with excitement and support from their networks.
Many of our Growth Story clients report feeling a new sense of confidence and enthusiasm for their businesses post-rebrand.
It’s a little different than the big brands because often our clients are upgrading from DIY (e.g., something they made from a template or in Canva) to professional branding.
During the rebranding process, we start with brand strategy to ensure we’re targeting the right prospects, using the best words to reach them, and building from a strong foundation. That brand strategy guides the redesign for logos, colors, typography, brand patterns, and more.
What to Update Before Announcing a Rebrand
Before you share your rebrand with the world, make sure you update all your forward-facing marketing materials to reflect the new brand. Here’s a brief checklist for you to follow.
1. Social Bios
Double check all of your social media bios to make sure they align with your brand strategy. Are you speaking to the right prospect? Are you using the right words that your prospective clients might be searching for? Do you address their problem and the transformation you provide them? Are you using a consistent tone and voice?
Actual channels to update depends on your brand strategy, but the most common social media bios to update are:
- Threads
2. Profile and Cover Photos
After completing the rebranding process, many clients choose to have a new brand photoshoot. These photos further help communicate the story we tell through their rebrand.
New photos provide the perfect opportunity to update your profile photos and cover photos across all of your social platforms.
Even if you opt to not have new brand photos taken, we recommend updating at least your cover photos using your new branding. You can create a graphic at the appropriate dimensions using your new colors, fonts, and logos to display on your profiles.
The LinkedIn profile below shows an example of one of our client’s updated cover photos, using her new branding.
3. Directories and Professional Listings
Does your firm have a listing within any professional directories or networking groups? Often, these listings include a brief description or bio of your firm—who you are, who you support, and how you help them. Be sure to update any of these listings with your new information, pulled from your brand strategy.
Examples of professional directories include:
- CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® directory
- Fee-Only Network
- Financial Planning Association
- Local Chambers of Commerce
- ProVisors
4. Google Business Profile
Optimizing and keeping your Google Business Profile up-to-date is important, especially for local firms. When prospects search for legal or financial help, this is how you show up for those in your area.
Click here for the step-by-step walkthrough for updating your Google Business Profile information.
Some items you may need to change on your profile to align with the rebrand:
- Logo
- Photos
- Business Description
- Services
5. Email Signature
If you have an email signature set up inside of your Gmail or Outlook account, update it if needed. This may not be required if your signature is simply your name and title.
However, for the practice owners who have a graphic or more in-depth email signature, it’s important to update it with your current messaging and visual brand elements.
Launching Your Rebrand
Now that all your channels and elements are updated, it’s time to get to work announcing your rebrand to the world!
At Growth Story, we provide all of our clients with a launch toolkit to make this process seamless. Inside of the toolkit, we have visual and text-based templates clients can customize to match their brand. Here are the main channels that are best for launching your rebrand.
Email List
If you have an email list (we highly recommend you do, by the way), that’s the perfect place to share your rebrand with past clients, current clients, and supporters. You can also use this email to drive traffic to your website—which is especially smart if you launch a rebrand and a new website at the same time (the approach most of our clients take).
This email can be tailored to your business’s unique story, but here are some talking points to build off of:
- Share your firm’s story and evolution over the years
- Mention why you underwent the rebrand
- Talk about how you feel about the rebrand and what it means for your clients
- Include a strong call-to-action (check out the new website, book a call, etc.)
Your LinkedIn network likely is full of colleagues, networking connections, and potential referral partners. It’s important for them to know your firm is entering a new phase of business—and you may discover that some of these people are the biggest supporters of your rebrand!
When announcing a rebrand on LinkedIn, you may follow a similar flow that you did for your email list announcement. For the call-to-action, end with a simple question: “What do you think of the rebrand?”, intended to start a conversation in the comments section.
If you have an Instagram account for your firm, we highly recommend sharing a post launching your rebrand. Instagram is a very visual platform, making it the ideal place to share your new brand visuals such as logos, colors, icons, etc.
We give our clients Instagram carousel templates to use where they can share their brand elements and mockups of their new website. You can create something similar for yourself, and in the caption, write about your rebranding journey and ask your followers for feedback on the rebrand.
Ready for Professional Brand Strategy and Design?
If this opened your eyes to how strategic and intentional every step of the brand design process is, we’d love to talk to you about how to bring your rebrand to life.
At Growth Story, we handle the full scope of rebranding—brand strategy, brand visuals, website SEO foundations, website copywriting, and website design. This means your brand stands out and your website is built to attract and convert leads. To get the process started, click here to book a free consultation with Allie, the founder of Growth Story.
FAQs about Announcing a Rebrand
Rebranding is an important (and exciting) next step for your business, especially if you’ve grown and evolved. Some signs to rebrand include: changing your target audience, shifting your services, growing your team, revamping your values, or simply if your brand doesn’t feel aligned anymore and doesn’t represent your firm at its current stage.
You can tease a rebrand by dropping subtle hints across your website, social media accounts, and email list. Begin to switch over your brand visuals and messaging. Tease to your community that you’re working on the next evolution for your firm, and something exciting is coming soon.
Common examples of rebranding include redesigning a business’s logo, updating the messaging to match the current target audience and services, and changing colors and fonts. Some famous rebranding examples are Starbucks and Petco, who rebranded in 2011 and 2020 respectively.
Announcing a rebrand is the best way to drum up excitement and boost engagement for your firm. Launch the story behind your rebrand and share your new brand visuals and website (if applicable) across social media platforms, including Instagram and LinkedIn, and to your email list. In addition, make sure all your channels are up-to-date with the rebrand including bios, directories, professional listings, etc.