The Rebranding Process
Rebrand. Some may look at the word like it is an insult, a curse, and a giant headache! You are not entirely wrong. I can understand why you look at the idea of rebranding your brainchild as insane especially if have an emotional attachment to the face of your company. Afterall, that is what your
“brand” is, it is the
face of your hair company. And when you first started with your business you agonized over picking
the perfect logo, color palette, and custom packaging, so the idea of changing all of that seems daunting. However, all brands including the giant ones, go through practices to rebrand. Whether they are cleaning up their image like Subway, switching up their spokesperson like Verizon (Can you hear me now?) or just ready for a fresh look when you are getting that nagging feeling that customers are no longer resonating with the message your company is trying to portray you need to a change! The facelift for your business is the act to rebrand. Keep reading for the signs that you need to rebrand and some ways you can do so!
#1 You Find Yourself Explaining Your Brand’s Flaws
Over-explaining is typical with hair companies that are just starting out. If you are only six months into your hair company and you have pivoted substantially in your thinking regarding branding representation you may need a rebrand. Be honest with yourself, if you have changed your domain name, added a cell number, changed your color palette, or altered the spelling of your brand name this applies to you. The tall tale tells sign is if you find yourself pulling out a business card and immediately explaining why you should ignore certain things on your card, inaccuracies of information, or why your website is down you need a rebrand! You should always be proud to share your brand, and all of the information you share should work together. When your branding products conflict, those insecurities will shine through when you begin to speak about or
promote your business. Take a second to look at all of your
marketing tools. Are they all related? If they are not connected, do they at least all speak to each other? Check fonts, colors, and contact information and make sure they mesh across business cards, promotional postcards, packaging, and websites. The goal is to have you and your brand ambassadors representing your brand with the utmost confidence.
#2 You Want to Reach A New Customer
There are times when making more money and expanding your hair company is dependent on a rebrand. When the products you want to offer or its presentation had changed significantly from when you first started, but you have not updated your company’s communication with these changes you are missing out on the money. For example, you started out wanting to serve a high-end client and only offered
Raw Virgin Indian hair, but six months in you decided to incorporate a Brazilian and
Malaysian hair assortment to cater to a student customer. That’s great! You are opening your hair extension companies to a broader audience and increase your sales potential. However, your company name is “Luxurious Virgin Hair Extensions,” and now your product offering is not matching with your brand name. If you do not change your name and marketing tools right away, you will have to explain your hair assortment every time you encounter a new client. Use this method to measure your branding efficiency: If it takes longer than 10 seconds to describe your brand, you need to rethink it. There is not always time for an in-depth explanation of what you are selling and your company’s price points! Research to ensure that when you are tapping into a new demographic your branding can relay that message as quickly as possible.
#3 Your Product Assortment Has Become Too Complicated
In this day and age, everyone wants to be Diddy, but no one wants to start off walking to Juniors to get the cheesecake. What I mean by that is, you cannot push hair,
lashes,
edge control, clothes, swimwear, handbags, and fragrances under one umbrella and think that the average customer will not be confused. Too many brands try to be everything to everyone, and that is just not possible. Take your clothing and accessories and put them on a different webpage. Rebrand by creating a new brand for those products and cleaning up your current
hair extension brand. Use this moment to reflect back on the importance of a target market and a niche. Drill in on your audience, and its core wants when it comes to
hair extensions to increase your effectiveness in the market. All beauty products can live on one website, but even those product lines should be separated and presented under different tabs. Take a look at the Private Label Extensions website for inspiration on how to categorize the hair extensions, edge control, and lashes on your webpage and create and for more accessible shopping experience for your consumer.
Sidebar:
If you have reached out to
beauty bloggers or influencers but have not received a response it could be because they could not articulate your brand’s offering on their own. Try cleaning up your assortment and reaching out again; once they can pinpoint what you are selling and who are you catering to they may be able to help you by posting or advertising for your brand. You may not be attracting top talent if your brand is too complicated. Remember, their influencers are a business, and they want to associate themselves with quality businesses that have a clear brand message.
#4 The Needs of Your Customers Have Changed
We all know that the hair industry is ever evolving. Unfortunately, that means that you may be changing your branding and marketing strategies every time the market picks a new trend to follow. Recently, the hair extension trend has migrated from sew-ins with minimal leave out to customized lace wigs and frontal installs. Innovations in lace transparency and scalp color variations can force you to adapt by offering these products or missing the wave and losing customers in the process. While many of your customers may still purchase
bundles for sew-ins, you may see an uptick in the purchases of
bundle deals along with a frontal or a closure. Meaning, that your customer is
making a wig with their order. It may be advantageous to send out a brief survey to your email list to ask them what they are doing with their purchase and if they are aware that you can offer them wigs as well. If your customer survey comes back that they are taking part in the wig trend and they are unaware that your hair company provides wigs, you may want to consider some re-branding options that will communicate all of your offerings.
Tip: Catering to your customer's needs and enabling them the option to save time by purchasing a readily-made wig or
getting a discount on a particular order that adds up to a wig will show that you acknowledge the needs of your customer and aid in better communicating your offerings.
Example:
- Purchasing a frontal and two bundles will unlock a coupon code for 15% off.
- Purchasing a closure ad 3 bundles will unlock a coupon code for free shipping.
#5 You Do Not Stand Out Amongst Competitors
Standing out can be a little tricky in a saturated market like the hair retailer segment of the
beauty industry. You may come across other brands with similar names or color schemes that be a little too close for comfort. Take a second and clear your cookies from your browser history and open up a private browser. Type in your website and ensure that it is not being re-routed to one of your competitors. If it is they, you may want to consider rebranding to a name that is more specific.
Tip: Try adding your name to the company’s title to make it less generic. You can keep your logo’s essential elements the same, but try examining your color scheme that and ensure that the colors are now on trend with your new name. If you are making any changes at all, try to subtract one color that you have used and clean up the logo to help your brand look cleaner; in this scenario, you are not changing the branding because it didn't work so you can keep a lot of your original ideas. Most hair companies will lead with some sort of pink as their primary brand color, they will then use gold or a metallic hue as a secondary color, and they layer multiple colors on top of that. Separate yourself by keeping it clean and simple and stick with two colors.
Rebrand to Success
The overall thing to remember when starting any business is that flexibility is critical. Whether you are
creating a hair extension company or a bakery, trial and error is the only way you are going to be able to find out how your target will respond to your marketing strategy. The easiest way to ensure that they do buy your product is by guaranteeing that your brand, the face of your company, communicates a clear message and lets them know what they are purchasing. And know that it is okay to restart and rebrand! Remember, you shouldn’t have to explain your brand to new or existing customers; do not complicate your brand and focus on the needs of your niche so that you can stand out amongst the crowd in the hair industry!
