This is a guest post courtesy of Mr. John Miller.
It’s time to get with the modern era, if you haven’t already.
The business landscape is evolving and changing quickly, and brands that don’t even make the effort to keep up are going to bite the dust.
Harsh? Maybe.
Doesn’t make it any less true.
Please share your thoughts and point of view in the comments below dorks. xo
Big businesses have shown us time and time again that when it comes to branding, you can’t just rest on your laurels and presume that your business will stay at the top of its game.
Doing what you’ve always done will not necessarily get you what you’ve always got – simply because fashions, trends, markets and technology change, and what was hot once doesn’t necessarily stay that way indefinitely.
If you have made no attempt to update your image in the last year, you shouldn’t be surprised if your company starts to resemble a dinosaur in the minds of many.
Here’s what you can do about it.
Re-Branding
If you really need to shake up your image and dispel old associations, then it may be time to come up with a new, more modern brand.
This can mean changing your logo for something more hip and modern, or it might mean completely changing your whole business image by choosing a different name as well.
Either way, this will show people you mean business and you are shaking things up, and at the same time it will get you a lot of free coverage and exposure from the press. (Provided of course you are a relatively well-known brand already.)
Push
Once you have created this new brand it’s no good just going quiet and hoping that people notice what you’re doing – you need to push your new image and make sure that it finds its way into the public awareness and more specifically replaces any old ideas people had regarding your organization.
Now is the time to advertise, to release new products, to create new promotional material and to generally expose yourself as much as you can. You can also follow these tips to start generating some buzz.
Change Your Priorities
If you change your logo and your marketing campaign but don’t change how you operate as a business then people are going to see through you and it will come off as nothing but a new PR stunt.
If you really want your ‘upgrade’ to be taken seriously, then your new branding should reflect a new direction and a new mission statement.
Come up with a plan for how you’re going to implement change in your organization and the products and services you intend to release over the next few years. This might also help you to find new investors and to reinvigorate your stocks.
Another way that you should demonstrate your new priorities is to start being more progressive with your business models and the way you promote to your customers.
In other words, this might mean giving away more freebies, or it might mean crowd sourcing ideas. Try to think less ‘corporate’ and more ‘trendy’ when making certain decisions or deciding on smaller policies.
One of the most important things you need to do in this regard is to demonstrate a sense of fun and a sense of creativity so that you seem less ‘stuffy’. I don’t know many people that love boring.
There are many great PR stunts you can use to this end, while sponsoring events, products, TV shows and charities can also communicate a new lease on brand life.
Embracing Technology
The next thing you need to do is to start embracing technology in your business plans and your promotion and make it clear that you’re interested in staying ahead of the curve.
This means having an up-to-date website that expresses what you want to say with your business, it means adding features like web apps, online stores and web 2.0 aspects, and it means making sure that you have a mobile app if possible and that you’re active with social media. It may even mean taking advantage of things like Kickstarter and Fiverr.
The more ‘involved’ and high tech you get, the more your business will look like a business out of the 21st century.
Properties
When McDonald’s decided to re-brand themselves to start looking healthier and more modern, they didn’t just change the color of their boxes – they also changed the décor in their commercial properties.
This is something you should consider too, so think about how you can decorate your offices, your stores and your sites, to look more in keeping with modern businesses.
Look to the Googleplex for inspiration, that is a brilliant example of a ‘modern’ office that also gets lots of press coverage, thanks to its innovative approaches to business.
Over to You
Are you in the middle of a re-brand? Considering one? Tell us about it in the comments below. And pssst! Did you enjoy reading this post? Sweet. Please help #BGB share it. You rock!
