“Do you want to freshen up your branding but still want to maintain your brand’s Identity?”

Laine from Laine Sutherland Designs is a client of mine but she’s also a member inside the membership! I first met Laine back in 2018 where she wanted custom images for her website designs for teachers brand. I loved her colorful branding so I was on board. In 2019 after careful consideration, she decided to rebranding her brand. I absolutely had a blast changing up her brand’s imagery all over again.

This year while being inside the membership she stumbled across one of my quarterly collections that she instantly fell in love with! She decided to add in some colors from that collection. Tip: Finding a collection from your favorite stock photographer can help in rebranding or refreshing your brand!

She didn’t’ need a full makeover this time, she simply wanted to update her brand with a few added colors. She’s now able to use those images that was custom made for her as well as the stock photos inside the membership to tweak her website and social media graphics to perfection.

Rebranding Vs Refreshing

Rebranding and Refreshing are 2 separate pieces to the puzzle. Rebranding is all about going back to the core and changing it completely from the foundation out. Refreshing is taking a look at the foundation to see where you have evolved and tweaking from there.

So if you are like Laine and is looking to refresh your brand but want to maintain your brand’s identity then this blog post is for you!

What we will discuss:

How you can update your brand with simple tricks.
Benefits of updating your brand
How to have a successful brand refresh
10 ways to update your brand

Let’s begin…

Love it, Pin it!

Share this post with your audience so they can take the guess work out of content creation!

The Benefits of Updating your Brand

A great benefit to refreshing a brand is it’s less of a task than doing a full rebrand. By making subtle changes to your branding you can:

Preserve the morals, values, and beliefs of your brand

Give your brand new life and rejuvenation

Ensure your brand’s message and imagery keeps up with the ever-changing online world

Plus expand your reach to new ideal customers or clients.

Now let’s take a look at how to have a successful refresh!

Your Brand Refresh Strategy

Review and Audit your brand

✅ Research and Survey

One of the first steps is to research and survey. You want to see what your audience actually thinks of you. Get in contact with your past clients and current audience and survey them on their experience with you. See what makes you different in the eyes of your clients and audience.

Some questions to ask:

What is 3 words you’d describe me or my brand?
What brought you to my brand?
What’s one thing that keeps you coming back to work with me or reading my newsletter?

✅ Check Your Competitors

You do have to look at your competitors every so often to see how you can be different. Check their taglines, mission statement, logos, visuals, tone, personality, what they offer, and how they offer it. Check their social media platforms and websites. How can you stand out without losing your identity?

✅ Check your Brand’s Positioning and Mission

Now it’s time to check your unique position in your niche. Your message needs to do two things: Be factual and also be emotional. You need to be able to tell your audience

who you are (facts)
what you do (facts)
why you do what you do (emotional)
How you do it differently (emotional)
Why your position is beneficial for your audience (emotional)

✅Check your Brands Visual Identity

Finally getting into my favorite part...visuals! Knowing your brand’s position leads us to your visual identity. Remember without the foundation your visuals have nothing to hold on to! Your visual identity also needs to be different. When you are looking to update your brand, think of it as getting a facelift. You may not have to create a whole new logo, maybe you just need to change the font or color combination. Check for ways to explore different colors combinations, textures, images, fonts, and elements.

wrap it all together in your Brand Style Guide

A brand style guide is important in creating a cohesive and consistent brand across all platforms. That girlfriend creates brand recognition. A brand style guide is a set of guidelines that you stick to on ALL of your platforms.

The guide includes specifics around your logo usage (size, positioning, margins, and color variations) It will also address colors, fonts, photography styles, graphic elements, messaging, and other components that comprise your brand.

Roll it out

Make a checklist of everywhere you show up online and off. By creating a checklist you are able to update all of the areas so that everything is in alignment with your brand's messaging. Share your updates with your team, your clients, customers, and the audience to build up that excitement.

10 Ways to update your brand before 2021

The overall goal is to stand out and differentiate your brand while maintaining your consistency throughout your online platforms.

Now it’s time to learn 10 ways you can instantly update your brand now.

Create a secondary logo

If you love your logo but you find it hard placing it on certain marketing materials then think about creating a secondary logo. Add color and size variations like black and white or horizontal and vertical variation. Decide where and when you need to add this secondary logo and make sure that you keep it consistent.

Add a new color or texture to your branding

You may have looked at your brand and felt limited to your colors. Try adding in an alternative color maybe in pastel or a bright color depending on your brand’s style and mood. Add some flair to your brand with textures. Think rose gold, gold foil, marble, wood, or watercolor. What color or texture have you been wanting to try and feel it would work really well in your brand.

Introduce a new font

It’s a given to have a classic serif and modern sans serif combination but have you thought about adding in a fun script font. Have you found a font that would look great for your business? How does the new font fit with your brand’s personality and tone? Decide where the new font will be used and how.

Create a new collection of new icons or assets

Have you been looking into adding some fun illustrations for your brand? You can use these elements to illustrate your services or products. You could use them on your social media platforms and in graphics. Already have illustrations you use but aren’t in love with them? Why not switch it up!

Get custom or premium stock photos for your brand

If you need to change the style of your imagery what photographer will you need to get in touch with? Can you find a photographer that does custom work? Can you find stock photos that can accompany those custom images when you don’t have time or money to order new custom images? Be specific about your requirements for your photographer encompassing things like mood, lighting, editing styles, and whether or not you want models. If you are looking to test out my stock photos I have 20 free stock photos to give you as well as brand builder collections in the shop!

Tip: Use brand builder collections to add in a new color!

Update your website

Don’t worry about doing a full makeover here. Simply add in your new colors, images, fonts, and elements in the places that you outlined in your brand style guide. Add some new testimonials, update your about me page with your new updated brand’s mission, new headshots or illustrations.

Update your email template

Just as with your website, your email newsletters need to be updated also. Where can you add new colors, elements, images, fonts? Change your header and footer to match your new style. Go through any of your workflows and automatic emails and update them also.

Create templates for your social media

Update old blog post thumbnails with some of your new colors, fonts, logos, and images. Create Pinterest posts to send out for your old blog posts. Create updated social media templates for new and upcoming posts. If you have trouble coming up with social media graphics, I have a ton inside the membership as well as in the shop!

Update your landing pages

Just like with your website, update your landing pages. Go through and add new images or a new headshot. Fix any copy that needs to align with your brand.

Improve your freebies and digital product

Want to change up your freebies or update existing freebies or digital products? Update the cover art with your new brand identity. If you have a workbook, ebook, checklist, webinar, etc. edit your bio inside your lead magnet and reevaluate if the freebie fits your brand’s style and voice. Inside the membership and shop I have 5 lead magnet bundles to choose from!

Article Recap: where do you go from here?

Take an audit of your brand, ask those questions, create your brand identity guide, and create a checklist of all of the places you will need to update. Slowly roll them out, making time for each platform to make sure you will have cohesion and consistency throughout! Lastly start or continue showing up consistently sharing value, showing your personality, and giving helpful value-packed information.

Ready to put these topics into practice and attract your ideal audience? Here’s some resources as well as a gift to get you started!

Resources to help Refresh your Brand

Resources help make creating easier! Remember you don’t have to do this alone. Outsource and find the right tools to make things easier for you.

Here is the tool that I use to create my graphics!

Canva: It’s the easiest and simple online editor that I’ve ever worked with. Mind you, I’ve been doing this blogging game since 2012! Going with Canva Pro I’m able to have all of my brand identity elements with me to create faster.
She Bold Stock Shop: If you are looking for one off digital goods then the shop is the best place to go first. Find a brand builder stock photo collection of your color choice. Then take advantage of the social media templates and lead magnet bundles to help you create consistent graphics and products.
She Bold Stock Photo Membership: Like Laine, you can join the SBS Membership filled with High-quality unique imagery and graphic templates. Inside the Membership, we have over 3,000 unique images to choose from. You can use one collection for your website or mix and match to create your very own style.
She Bold Stock Services: Looking for particular images for your brand but having trouble finding it. No worries, I love a challenge! You can get in contact with me to get custom stock photos just for you!

10 Ways to Update your Brand