When it comes to changing your business name, there is no easy way out. You have to think about your financial documents, your print materials, your online templates, and the list goes on. One thing we didn’t consider though, is that this would the face of our LinkedIn while we were trying to make the transition to a different company name.

(While updating our social profiles we had to submit a ticket to LinkedIn requesting a name change once we were this far along, but  apparently we needed to create a new profile)

Excuse us, we’re just over here looking slightly confused.

In all honesty though, when the time is right, rebranding might be just what your company needs. In fact, well-known brands such as Pepsi have rebranded 11 times, and even Apple, the global tech giant, has rebranded 3 times.

So why did we go through all the trouble? Mainly because of this statistic:

45% of a brand’s image can be attributed to what it says, and how it says it.

Our brand was built around the original service our company offered, which was content writing. As we grew, we added “Digital Marketing” but the main letters, “CSC” actually stood for “Clearly Stated Content.” Since creating valuable content is only one of our service offerings, we decided that a simple logo change wouldn’t be consistent with the message we wanted to convey to our audience.

When we began discussing new business names, we tossed around some fantastic ideas, but they didn’t quite fit. We had some really, really awful ideas too, “Real Good Marketing” comes to mind. (Although, somehow we’ve laughed about it so much it’s actually grown on me.) Several times we conducted public polls with name ideas and then changed our minds. We became so frustrated with the time it was taking from our daily lives, we almost scratched the whole project.

The problem for us and for many businesses either starting out or going through a major change is deciding, is it worth it?

Below are some questions to ask when considering a major brand overhaul vs. a logo makeover:

• Have your services or your customer demographic changed?
• Are your current customers particularly attached to your current brand?
• Has the competitive landscape changed?
• What would you hope to accomplish with the new name?

With Organically, we knew that our name no longer reflected our full list of services. We chose the new name because our focus is helping businesses grow online through organic digital marketing techniques. Also, if you break apart our name, you’ll notice it says ‘organic ally.’ We wanted to promote how we partner with businesses to create custom campaigns to drive results.  (I wanted to use the tagline,  “We’re like fertilizer for businesses!” -I’m still working on it, but so far the consensus is no, and I’m told I must include a disclaimer here:  This tagline does not reflect the values, beliefs, or standards upheld by Organically…)

The next two questions didn’t pertain to us as much. We hold very frequent meetings with our clients and for the most part, they are attached to our work and the people they work with, more-so than our name. If we were a brand like Pepsi or Apple, I’d say that changing our name would be very detrimental to our business, since most of their audience purchases their products without personal interactions taking place with employees of said companies.

As far as competition goes, our market has been saturated for years. That’s nothing new. We’ve managed to build our business in a very competitive landscape by driving results and getting referrals from our clients. (In fact, we’ve never even needed a sales team!)

Our current customers and our own digital marketing efforts have made us competitors in a tough market. (In all honesty,  if you ARE considering rebranding because you have negative feedback from your current clients, please know that customer service is key in any industry and those issues should be addressed promptly. Otherwise you’ll carry that negative feedback into your new brand and your hard work and expense of creating new materials won’t pay off.)

For the last question however, when we asked ourselves what we hoped to accomplish with our new brand, we answered the same as many businesses would. We want our current and future clients to connect with us and to associate what we do with the our name and logo.

We chose a leaf for our design because it is a symbol of growth – the same growth we want to help our clients achieve through online marketing. The middle of the leaf looks like a path, moving up the leaf, symbolizing that we can provide the path to growing your business, which we do by offering custom strategies for different verticals. Even the color scheme is symbolic. At the base of the leaf, there is a patch of dark blue. The blue turns lighter as your eyes travel up the leaf, just as digital marketing requires a strong foundation, and results continuously improve over time.

Again, we’re like fertilizer for your business! (No? …not catching on yet…)

The bottom line is, whether it is time to change your logo or completely overhaul your image, make sure you do so by keeping your current and future customers in mind. If you do decide on a new website as we did, keep customer experience top of mind throughout the entire process. At the end of the day, when it comes to building your brand, colors and names don’t matter as much as the service you provide and if the customers you’re looking for are able to find you.

by Amara Young