For Professor Minerva McGonagall, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin (all of Harry Potter fame), shape-shifting comes naturally. For the rest of us, it’s difficult to contemplate altering any aspect of our persona, let alone completely recreating our core identity. For SaaS businesses, changing how they show up in the world can pose an even greater challenge. And yet, undergoing a rebrand can be well worth the effort. Helping companies to rebrand is a core element of Lock 8’s approach to value creation in B2B SaaS businesses; and we’ve helped more than a dozen businesses through this process.
The following two-part post will share observations from these initiatives, with the goal to remove some of the mystery and risk from rebranding SaaS businesses.
To start, let’s clarify some seemingly similar terms:
To oversimplify, “brand” is the totality of perceptions held in people’s minds about a business or product. This sentiment influences how customers / competitors / prospects / partners / employees / investors feel about your offerings.
“Branding” is the process through which companies try to shape their brand. According to Primer, good branding is good story-telling. Companies should aim to 1) control their narrative (if you don’t define your brand, a competitor will), 2) emotionally engage (make a promise to your audience that sets an expectation and delivers on it) and, 3) be consistent (inconsistent impressions will water down your narrative and create barriers). Collectively, these branding efforts include, but are definitely not limited to: refreshing a brand, rebranding, and renaming.
Echoing what Huddle Creative helpfully describes in this post, a “brand refresh” is limited in scope. Refreshes typically involve small tweaks to brand elements, such as logo design, brand guidelines, and marketing materials. This post does NOT overly concern itself with brand refreshes.
A “rebrand” involves a more comprehensive overhaul of the company’s identity, or even an entirely new identity. A rebrand has relevance to all aspects of a company, including its mission statement, core values, product framework, positioning pillars, brand promise, and others; it represents major refinements to a business’ brand positioning and messaging. We wouldn’t expect to undertake a rebrand more than once every ~5 years.
Lastly comes the rename. In our view, a rename is the whole enchilada. It includes all elements of a rebrand, plus the major step of renaming the business. Needless to say, this is not for the faint of heart; and it should happen seldom.
Given the obvious complexity / cost / risks associated with all of the above, it is well worth examining the question: How to know whether and when your SaaS business needs a rebrand…or a rename?!
A sure sign that a rebrand is in order is when there is confusion about your company in the market. Sometimes people misunderstand what your business does, and nowhere is this more evident than at trade shows. While working at a SaaS business that was generically named Intelliworks, the most frequent question I heard at our booth was, “Now, what do you guys do again?” Also, pay attention to people’s body language at conferences; even without words, you’ll learn a lot about your brand and whether it warrants scrutiny.
Even a clear brand can be unhelpful. A brand should help small-scale SaaS businesses punch above their weight. Conversely, when prospects think you are smaller than you are, it’s a problem that shows up as unnecessary friction in the sales process. This is exactly what’s happening when prospects ask how large your company is, or demand to see audited financials, or fixate on what will happen if you go out of business. These are clear signals that you may have an opportunity for brand improvement.
Finally, it’s worth examining how well aligned your brand is to the market you strive to serve. Are your core brand values and voice out of line with the values of your target audience? To what degree is your company's branding outdated? How much of a competitive edge does your brand identity provide? Depending on the answers to these questions, a rebrand could be in order.
When embarking on a rebrand, it’s important to remember that it is as much a strategic initiative as it is a creative one. The best rebrands bring to life a robust company-level strategy. Any thoughtful rebrand will build on a foundational company strategy with reinforcing elements such as a codified brand promise, brand personality traits (expressed and implicit), and brand tone & voice. All of this strategic rigor precedes any creative work(!).
If a SaaS business is fundamentally re-visiting and re-thinking its strategy, it is likely also worth considering a rebrand. Conversely, if it lacks clarity about its product vision or target audience or core differentiation in the market (as examples) – or if the business is satisfied with the status quo – wait! You should almost certainly delay a rebrand until you have alignment among key stakeholders on strategic direction.
One way to test whether a rebrand initiative is starting at an appropriate altitude is to pose initial questions that start with “Why?”
Unless there are compelling answers to these questions, stop right there; a rebrand may simply not be worth the effort. Quite often, though, these initial screens signal a need to dig-in further on a potential rebrand initiative.
Given the seriousness of renaming a business, we believe there are only three core reasons to change a company's name:
Outside of the above scenarios, though, the cost and interdependent risks of renaming are often too high to consider.
Hopefully this has provided some strategic guidance around rebranding / renaming initiatives. Please check back for Part 2 of this post, which will dive into tactical lessons learned for how to successfully manage such projects.
