A Digital-First Rebranding Strategy for Maximum Impact

The digital world has revolutionized the way we interact with brands. Today, customers, internal stakeholders, and prospects are more likely to connect with a company through digital channels—its website, app, and social media—than through physical stores or in-person meetings.

Many brands are stuck in an analog mindset: they’re trying to take their existing (sometimes old) brands and make them resonate on digital channels. But this won’t be effective. To win customers in a competitive digital market, you need a digital-first branding strategy that affirms the modern customer journey and helps prospects connect with your brand. The good news is this: you can take a digital-first approach and still leave room for your brand’s history, acknowledge your legacy, and maintain your relationship with your customers. Here’s how to start.

Balancing Old and New

When you are rebranding your company and focused on reaching audiences through digital channels, there’s a very real temptation to go all-out on new features and modern design. This isn’t always the best decision because a flashy, modern, new design can draw attention away from the brand itself. The best digital rebranding strategy is one that accounts for the customer journey and keeps in mind the historical context of the brand.

For example, look at the rebrand of Algolia.com, the AI-powered search and discovery platform. The flat and generic-looking timer in the old logo mark was neither identifiable nor unique and would not have translated well in the digital space. The new logo, however, has a more ownable mark and does a better job of tying in the shape to the letter “a” and highlighting their search solutions.

Algolia simultaneously achieved an updated look that worked well for the digital world (it’s more modern and streamlined), but they kept to their roots as well. There are similarities between the old and the new that connect the dots for customers.

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Conveying Your Brand’s Personality With Imagery

In today’s world, the user experience (UX) conveys your brand personality and shapes the experience, so it’s crucial to be intentional. By considering digital applications first during your rebranding, you can ensure that your brand identity experience is a priority from all angles.

To make sure your brand’s personality and message are conveyed effectively to digital audiences, you must consider what will be most noticeable to your users when they visit your site and the feeling or message you want them to walk away with. With only a few seconds to capture attention when visitors reach your site, visual interest is key: The colors, fonts, and imagery you use matter. Mode.com, a collaborative data platform that recently underwent a rebrand, successfully conveyed the brand’s personality through a handful of changes to their logo. The previous logo’s sharp “M” monogram and a wordmark with no distinctive features were bland. The new brand’s irregular “M” form and stout proportions are unique, and the vintage computer vibe indicates that this isn’t your run-of-the-mill tech company but something more remarkable.

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Connecting with Customers Through Design

One of the best things about a digital-first brand refresh is the immediacy of putting it to the test. You can quickly roll out a new, more robust story and updated look and receive semi-instant feedback on the impact of your rebrand work. Direct input from customers and prospects via social media and web engagement metrics such as clicks, time on page, bounce rates, and web form completion provide almost immediate insights into how well you have connected with your target audience.

The rebranding of Hootsuite, the social media management platform, garnered an immediate positive reaction. The previous all-black application made the logo and dashboard feel slightly too serious and gloomy. The quirkier and non-conforming new icon with a more vibrant tone and voice brought friendliness and optimism and was received very well.

And, really, one of the biggest risks of a rebrand is whether or not your existing customers will take it well. Navigating change can be difficult, and you don’t want to lose your customers’ trust. Hootsuite’s new, updated design more closely aligns with how the brand connects with customers in a fun, engaging, helpful way.

When navigating a rebrand, focus your strategy on the digital world. Your company’s digital brand experience is the modern storefront, and graphics, colors, font choices, website design, copy, and even the layout of your site impact how your customers experience your brand. With a digital-first strategy, you’ll be able to deepen your connection with your target audience, engage with them in new and innovative ways, and build a brand identity that stands out in the crowded digital landscape because you’re engaging customers in their preferred space (the digital world). So, if your brand launch has stalled or you’re experiencing the frustrations of transferring a historically offline brand into a digital one, you may need to flip your perspective. Start with digital so that you can tell your brand story in a new and compelling way and reach new audiences to grow your business.