5 Steps to Select the Perfect Digital Marketing Agency for Your Rebrand

Rebranding an organization is a critical undertaking in the lifecycle of a business. Even when a company has developed a strong brand, there may still come a time when a rebrand is necessary to achieve several objectives, including to keep growing, expand product lines, tap into new consumer segments or refresh an outdated brand identity. 

Developing a brand is a complex process. Executing a rebrand is even more challenging. You need branding expertise, creative capabilities and experience with rebranding projects. To overcome the challenges of a rebranding initiative and produce a successful outcome, you should consider hiring a branding agency. While most agencies don’t specifically market themselves as “rebranding agencies,” many do have extensive experience in rebranding projects. 

To help make your quest for an agency easier, we’ve created this checklist to guide your search for the perfect rebranding partner. Use the questions to narrow down your search and choose the best agency to manage your rebrand. 

When searching for a branding agency, there are fundamental questions to ask upfront. This first round of questions will help you quickly eliminate agencies and whittle down your list to a few top contenders. Your goal here is to see if the agency is a basic fit for your project based on experience, capabilities and costs. 

Ask these essential first-round questions right up front:

This should be a leading criterion in your search for a digital agency. The agency you choose to rebrand your organization must have previous rebranding experience, because executing a successful rebranding program takes skills that are more specialized than just creating a new brand whole cloth. 

For example, rebranding requires being highly sensitive to the history of an existing brand and customers’ attachment to it. You don’t want an agency who thinks they need to start from scratch, eliminate all resemblance to your existing brand and create a totally new brand identity. 

To strengthen this rebranding experience objective, ask these questions:

There are many kinds of digital agencies available in the marketplace. To choose the right one for your rebranding project you need to go deep to fully understand critical issues, such as how they work with clients and how they achieve their clients’ goals. It’s better to know as much as you can upfront to help avoid downstream surprises that negatively impact your rebranding project. 

One critical question to ask the agency is about their process. If they don’t have a rebranding process in place that should be viewed as a red flag. If they have a process in place, ask them to walk you through it step-by-step so you fully understand and know what to expect on your rebranding journey. 

Here are a variety of questions you can ask to get to vet a branding agency and get to know them better: 

Typically, a digital agency that handles rebranding projects from end-to-end employs a variety of branding experts, such as designers, content writers, producers, strategists, developers and project managers. They will be the people you work directly throughout the rebranding process. As a result, you want to be sure there is a strong personality fit. Having a good fit will help improve communications and lay down a solid foundation for dealing with any challenges when they arise. 

To help assess the fit between your team and an agency’s team, meet the team members and see how they interact with each other and how the agency team interacts with your team. Dive deeper with these questions:

Digital agencies will want you as a new customer and will enthusiastically pursue your project. But you need to make sure they have the time available to do it right at every stage of the process. Taking on a branding project, particularly a rebrand, involves a long-running process to get it right — from research to analysis. 

Because your brand will be the most important project for your organization and your investment must have a high return, explore the agency’s commitment to the whole journey with these questions:

Finding the right rebranding agency partner can be a challenge, but well worth the effort. Not only can an experienced agency help make your rebranding project run smoother and deliver ideal results, but also it can deliver the highest return on your investment. If you’re considering a rebrand in your future, we hope this checklist provides you with a solid starting point in your search for your perfect rebranding agency partner. 

Whether you’re looking to dial up your current marketing efforts with campaigns, want to improve your demand gen efforts, or are having headaches with your current agency, the Kuno Creative team can help. Our consultants, design, content and HubSpot implementation experts have experience throughout the company lifecycle to help you wherever you are. 

Take some time to review our other articles, take a look around our website and reach out to our team today to see how we can help yours!