5 Tips for a Successful Brand Launch

For a brand launch to be successful, you need to align it with where your company currently is and where you plan to go. A brand is more than just colors and a logo, it’s a promise to your stakeholders that represents the guiding principles you and your team live every day.

Below, we’ll outline a few tips you can follow to help ensure buy-in for your next brand launch.

1

Be mindful of the suddenness of the change

A thoughtful and strategic brand redesign or refresh is a process that takes months if not years. Typically, a handful of people will have been on the journey for a while — providing input on every decision and weighing in on all the elements of the brand from messaging to logomark, color palette to typography style and how these uniquely represent the organization.

However, it’s important for you to think about the brand launch from the perspective of your internal and external stakeholders. While they may know that something is changing, the brand launch will be their first real chance at viewing and understanding the changes you’ve made.

For this reason, you need to be mindful that change can be hard for some people — especially if the new brand is more of a brand redesign than a brand refresh.

While the process has logic, thought, and intent, it’s critical that you meaningfully convey that information to your team, partners, and clients in a way that resonates with them and gets them excited for what’s to come.

Take this moment as an opportunity to cement your relationships by helping to tell the story, communicate the “why,” and explain how your new brand sets the stage for your organization’s next chapter.

2

Put the story first

The process of designing a logo, choosing colors, deciding on a voice, and otherwise picking the elements of your new brand is essential to the brand redesign process. However, sometimes marketing teams can get caught up in the weeds and miss the real opportunity presented by a brand redesign or refresh.

Specifically, a brand is more than the sum of its parts. Brands are the image invoked in the mind of your team, partners, and customers when they see your logo or hear your name. It’s more than just a collection of pixels or a flashy business card — it’s the story you’re putting out in the world to inform people about who you are and where you’re going.

Don’t just throw your new colors and fonts onto your website and call it a day — use your brand launch strategically to tell the story of the “why” behind your decisions.

Why does your logo look this way? How does it better represent who you are? How do these changes reflect the changes in your organization that have occurred since your last brand launch?

Take the time to dig deep into the thoughts and stories that exist behind your brand and express them clearly in your brand launch materials.

3

Schedule an internal launch — then push externally

Branding is about presenting a consistent, memorable, and easily identifiable symbol of your company. Whether that’s your name, your logo, or an entirely new color palette, you want your users to look at an element of your brand and immediately recognize that it’s associated with your business.

For this reason, it’s important to set the stage for all your internal team members so everyone can work from the same playbook. You don’t want your office in New York to be putting out proposals with your old brand while your office in Nevada is all-in on your new assets.

When planning your brand launch, always start with internal stakeholders and get their buy-in first — people need to understand your brand in order to adopt the change. Once your organization is on board and has the assets and information they need, use these team members as ambassadors who can promote the assets externally.

There is real power in having a unified voice share the story.

4

Direct users to a page with information about the change

Sending out an email announcement to your team discussing the new change is insufficient for getting full buy-in from all levels of your organization. Make it easy for your employees and partners to find the resources they need by building a dedicated brand page where they can review the changes and download any assets they need to navigate the switch.

Especially when a brand launch is attached to a new website, it’s smart to have a period of time where team members can review the new site and become familiar with it and better understand the brand before everything goes live. This quick vetting process also gives them the opportunity to read your materials and download any assets they may need (logos, templates, etc.) to successfully switch to the new brand.

Further, this provides a central platform where stakeholders who didn’t hear about the change (such as external partners) can stay informed on what’s happening with your brand.

5

Speak with one voice and avoid staggered launches

Pulling off a successful brand launch is hard work — and finding the balance that feels “right” can often be challenging. It’s understandable to be excited about showing off your new brand immediately, but being intentional in the process will have far greater impact. Create a plan for how your new brand will roll out across all platforms so you can avoid a staggered launch or a delay in getting assets or elements out the door.

Especially for businesses with satellite offices or external arms that may not work as closely with the main office, it’s important to ensure everyone speaks with one voice from the moment you formally launch your new brand.

You don’t want to walk into a warehouse several years down the road and find old version of your logo plastered on the walls. Take the time to plan out every detail of how you’ll convert from the old to the new — both online and in the real world.

Consistency is key. You’re not just launching a new brand, you’re adjusting your internal processes and planning to match the new course for your organization. You can’t just turn on a switch and expect things to change across your entire organization, you need to have a plan that not only helps your team members make the switch, but enables and encourages them to do so.

Make your next brand launch a resounding success

A brand is more than just colors and a logo, it’s a vision for where your company’s going and how you plan to get there. It symbolizes your guiding principles and sets the tone for every interaction involving your business – both internally and externally.

For this reason, it’s critical for you to do things right when planning your next brand launch.

Take the time to strategically understand the why behind your brand. Make a plan for how you’ll execute the various aspects of changing your brand. Find ways to not only make it easy for your team to make the switch, but to make it exciting as well.

Brands are promises of what lies ahead. Your brand launch should be the unifying chorus that directs your internal and external stakeholders to sing in tune with one another.