How to make a rebranding rollout plan

Rebranding takes a lot of work, so when the time finally comes to unveil the brand, it can be tempting to skip rollout planning — but that’s a mistake. 

Imagine that you prepared a complicated gourmet meal and then served that meal on paper plates. The presentation wouldn’t reflect all of the time and effort you spent preparing. 

The same goes for a rebrand — you want your rollout to reflect the quality of your brand and the time and effort your team has invested. 

Rebranding requires more effort than simply modifying your logo and brand colors. It can represent a new direction, a new purpose, and a change in how your business interacts with people. 

Changing people’s behavior is hard, and without planning, the rebrand can fall flat. So let’s look at a few suggestions to help you develop your rollout plan and improve your rebrand’s effectiveness. 

Planning starts with people

Rebranding is a rare occurrence for most businesses. The novelty of it makes it a great opportunity to capture people’s attention and increase brand awareness. 

To make that happen, you need to ensure all aspects of your marketing are synchronized and that your people are excited about the change. What can help you create an emotional connection with both employees and customers?

Identify your audiences

Before you can engage customers and employees with your brand, it’s important to understand them. Who will you be targeting, and what kind of messaging will generate enthusiasm for your rebrand? It’s important not to overlook internal audiences like employees and managers, as they’ll be the driving force behind the success of your rebrand. 

Action item: Create buyer personas for both internal and external audiences to help guide your messaging and rollout plan. 

Link your internal and external marketing

A common mistake companies make when rebranding is separating internal and external marketing. Business leaders may reason that messaging for customers should be different than messaging for employees. 

However, the purpose of your rebrand should be unified and clear to both internal and external audiences. While you might tweak your messaging for the audience, two distinct sets of messaging will confuse employees and make it hard for them to support the rebrand.  

Action item: Map out how your internal and external messaging connect. For example, the benefits to customers will likely lead to increased revenue/stability for employees and a shift in how they work. Making these connections clear will motivate employees to support your rebranding initiative.

Get internal buy-in for the updated brand

Employees need to feel connected to the new brand because they’ll likely play a large role in the upcoming changes. In addition to updating your brand’s aesthetics, your rebrand may emphasize employees being advisors or consultants. If you don’t get buy-in, it’s unlikely that employees will embrace their new roles.

Action item: Prioritize internal change management to help employees embrace the change before releasing it to the public. If you have the full support of your team, you’ll benefit from more momentum during rollout. 

Start by documenting all of your relevant brand touchpoints

It’s important to document how customers interact with your brand. These touchpoints may be physical assets like billboards or digital touchpoints like your website or a specific landing page. Understanding how people interact with your brand will help you decide which touchpoints you need to update for the rollout. 

Action item: List all of your brand’s touchpoints. Decide which touchpoints you need to improve and which you need to retire. This may also be a good time to add visibility on new platforms. 

Develop your rebrand story

Customers will care about why you’re making the changes more than the changes themselves. If the answer doesn’t come across clearly in your messaging, employees and customers could become frustrated. This frustration may come from the perception that you’re making the change without good reason. 

Action item: When developing your rebrand story, make your audience (customers and employees) the focal point of the story and talk about why the change is important. 

Set the schedule

It’s important to plan the order in which you’ll reveal different aspects of your rebranding and when you’ll do it. 

You may decide to coordinate other marketing and ad campaigns to get as much exposure as possible. Your schedule will ensure employees don’t release updates prematurely, and it will account for all of the brand’s touchpoints (billboards, website, printed material, etc.) to ensure your rollout is comprehensive. 

Action item: Make sure your rollout calendar is available to employees. Easy access to the calendar will make it easier for your people to follow the schedule and will reduce confusion. 

Make planning transparent and visible with digital tools  

Planning your rebranding rollout is already a big job, so don’t make it harder with static spreadsheets. Jotform’s powerful forms make it easy to collect, distribute, and share data. During your rebrand, try using Jotform to collect information on your audiences, check how your team feels about the rebrand, document your touchpoints, and create your rollout calendar. 

Our forms are accessible from anywhere, and you can share them with anyone. Simplify your planning process and try Jotform today. 

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