How do you integrate a new brand internally?
Rebranding is an exciting but challenging time. However, although the main reason to rebrand is to attract even more of your target market, if your new brand is going to succeed, your employees must buy in so how do you integrate a new brand internally?
In this blog we’ll share 8 top tips for integrating a new brand internally.
1. Communicate the story behind the brand
Understanding exactly what your new brand has been designed to communicate is key to gaining internal buy-in, your employees need to understand what it is, what it means, what it says and why it matters. This all needs to be communicated clearly and concisely across all available channels (meetings, emails, the intranet and newsletters).
2. Involve your employees in the branding process
Involving employees in the rebranding process means they will feel they have played their part in your new brand’s creation. This means they will be much more invested when it comes to adoption and implementation.
Their input can be channelled through surveys, focus groups, and workshops to gather employee input and address concerns. During these sessions you can also identify a group of brand ambassadors, employees who are clearly enthusiastic about the brand who would be willing to pass on information to/generate enthusiasm within their teams.
3. Educate your employees about your new brand
Making sure your employees understand the new brand identity and how to use it will also help integrate your new brand internally.
First make sure you create comprehensive brand guidelines that introduce logos, colour schemes, tone of voice, and usage rules. These should be shared and explained in workshops and training sessions.
4. Update all your materials
As with all good marketing, branding success comes down to consistency. A new brand must be imbedded into all materials and touchpoints and the switch needs to be done in one fail swoop not in dribs and drabs.
Make sure your website is refreshed to reflect your new branding – this is your shop window!
You must also refresh your internal documents, your presentations, your email signatures, your social media channels, and your marketing material and please don’t forget your internally facing platforms, your intranet and any licenced-in platforms supporting different departmental functions.
5. Celebrate the launch
Celebrating the launch of your new brand creates will make it an occasion rather than a tweak.
You should definitely host a company-wide launch event and make a very public fuss of your new brand identity.
We suggest you hand out some swag – notebooks, pens, water bottles, tote bags, lap top covers – so people have something physical connecting them to your new brand.
6. Keep your brand front of mind
Integrating a new brand internally can’t just be a single, one off campaign. Success requires continual engagement to keep your brand and the values behind it front of mind.
You can do this by sending out regular updates. Looking at examples of how the brand has worked well in certain relatable situations. You can also publicly reward the employees who personify your brand in their work.
7. Monitor (and keep monitoring) feedback
Actively gathering and monitoring employee feedback via suggestion boxes, anonymous surveys, regular check-ins with team leaders and ongoing occasional “pulse surveys” will help you identify any elements that might need adjusting.
8. Ensure your brand values are part of your daily operations
This helps underline your brand is not a superficial change but a fundamental change to the way you do business.
Make sure your people know your brand values, that they play a prominent part in your induction and onboarding so people get them from day one and realign your performance metrics and appraisal process with your values so employees recognise they will be rewarded for living them.
At Simdure, we not only create exciting new brands but also make sure they are rolled out in a way that will guarantee their success, both internally and externally. Please get in touch if you’re thinking about refreshing your branding and we’ll explain more about our simple, straightforward approach to brand refreshes .
