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When you’re going through a rebranding process, you need to get your internal team on board. While that may not sound as difficult as developing a rebranding strategy and revamping your brand (however extensively), it can actually be a significant challenge for plenty of businesses.
Simply put: If your own team doesn’t buy into your rebrand, your customers won’t, either. Everyone needs to commit to it, and that may mean selling the new branding to your internal team members much like you will your customers. And in this post, we’re going to show you exactly how to roll out a rebrand with internal marketing, and why it’s so important.
Your brand identity is fragile, and presenting that brand really does start with your employees. If they’re rolling their eyes or even just failing to share materials with new branding, it can result in brand inconsistency.
And if your team isn’t taking your brand seriously, your customers won’t either.
That can be enough to sink your business, or at least cause a major hit.
Keep in mind that no one likes change, and people especially dislike needing to change a major part of their routine. A rebrand could mean all new brand messaging, reaching new audiences, new images, and new materials. These are all things that your team must adjust to, and any resistance can slow or even stop the process altogether.
Culture changes start from within, which is why it’s crucial to get your team on board when rolling out the internal rebranding process.
One of the most important parts of getting your team involved is establishing what your team needs to expect and when during the new rebranding and onboarding process.
You will, for example, need to first start with what workers should expect to change, which an include:
Some rebrands even include your existing brand culture (aka an internal rebrand), which will most directly impact your team first and foremost. Maybe you’ll have a new policy about open feedback at every level; that’s a big change. This is a huge culture shift that needs dedicated internal messaging and communications.
And if your rebranding involves becoming more customer-centric, that’s going to change the customer support processes involved, too. It will likely also mean learning new tools, software, and policies that your team already knows and is familiar with.
Carefully document what changes your team should expect and at what point the transition will begin and end. You also want to let them know what brand training will be involved.
Letting your team know that they have four more weeks with existing sales resources and pitch decks before they’ll be transitioning to those with new branding can help your team prepare, knowing when they’ll need to be ready with those new representations.
And best of all, when you’re setting expectations, it opens the door for your informed team to provide input on the rebrand. This is invaluable, because they may have insight your executive team or an external rebranding agency hasn’t considered.
Someone on marketing may point out, for example, that suddenly shifting your entire USP or logo halfway through a customer’s buyer journey could be disorienting, allowing your sales team to preemptively find a solution before it becomes an issue.
Before you even create launch campaigns to market your new brand to external customers, you must roll out internal campaigns to help your team embrace and understand all the new changes coming their way.
Clear employee communications will be vital here. Start by making it clear when new assets are coming, what’s coming, and when they need to be used. This may include new branding guidelines, brand voice guidelines, or marketing campaigns.
All brand guidelines need to be crystal clear. Everyone from senior managers all the way down to external freelance vendors should be able to clearly understand everything from your brand’s voice to treatment of customer policies and even whether or not to use the oxford comma.
Helping them to understand what the new assets are is also essential, especially for marketing, sales, and customer support teams who do client-facing work.
Make sure they know:
You don’t want your marketing team using ads promoting the outdated tagline, for example, or sales using an old pitch deck.
Have a plan in place to share all new and existing assets, and ensure your entire team is up to date. Ideally, have your assets in a single location that your team can access.
Content Camel, for example, allows your entire team to access your full inventory of media while sharing it, categorizing and labeling it, and even making requests for what else is needed. It can be invaluable for ongoing content management and creation, but it is practically essential during a chaotic period like a rebrand.
See how it works here:
It’s very common for workers— especially those who have been around for a long period of time— to feel a deeply personal connection to your existing brand. They’re passionate about the work they do, and they may not like or even agree with the new rebrand that they’re being steered into.
That’s natural, especially if you’re asking their day-to-day tasks to change when they’re a little resistant. That being said, it is possible to get your team on board with the rollout of internal marketing campaigns, dedicated training, a transitional period, and strong employee communications.
It ultimately comes down to selling your rebrand to your team first, and your customers second. So conduct the proper research to understand your workers, and don’t just drag them by the ear, convince them that your rebranding is the best choice for the company, its employees, and the consumers.
Ready to organize all of your content so your team can adapt to new rebranding? Sign up for your free trial with Content Camel.
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Content Camel is a sales enablement tool used for sales content management. High-growth sales teams use our system to quickly find and share the right content for each specific sales situation and measure content use and effectiveness.