How the founder of Spewy rebranded her seven-figure business

When I started my business Spewy four years ago, we had one product which came in a couple of designs. The logo was fun and vibrant as we were selling a product for babies/kids and, at the time, it was the perfect look for my startup. However, during this time we grew enormously, and with a new product line and a range of new eye-catching patterns, I started to look at our current brand with a new lense and focus. 

With more products and designs, I felt that our once colourful logo and brand was actually taking away from our products, and we wanted to make them the hero. So we set to work to rebrand, starting a new chapter for the business that realigned with our vision and overall message to our target market. 

But a successful brand is so much more than a pretty logo and colour palette. It’s your tone of voice, customer service and everything that you do day in and day out to improve and grow your business. 

So when it comes to rebranding your business, it may seem a little overwhelming at first, but with careful planning and execution it is definitely worthwhile. Here are my four key takeaways and what we have learnt through this experience.

Audience/target market

Our product is targeted to babies and children so we needed to create a brand that appealed to parents (more neutral tones) rather than the children themselves. It’s important to revisit who your audience is, what they’re needs and wants are and what appeals to them. Then design your branding around this. You can find this data on your socials, in your email marketing program and through your website.

We also put together surveys and sent out to both existing and potential customers to get even clearer on who our customer is. 

Future business direction

Are you looking at releasing a new product or adding a different design to your existing range in the future? These questions are really important because it may change the direction you take with your branding. We can’t always plan out what will happen and sometimes in business we do have to pivot but if we keep these questions front of mind, it will make things easier down the track.

Like your name, your logo is one of your brand’s most memorable components. When you’re rebranding, avoid losing too much brand recognition by trying to maintain the parts of your old logo that worked. If you can maintain a sense of continuity, you’ll be able to carry over some of the brand recognition your old logo initially had.

Graphic designers vs do it yourself

This is why using a graphic designer for your branding is a worthwhile investment. You have worked hard to get your business to where it is, investing in a graphic designer will help you to stand out from the crowd.

However if you do decide to do it yourself some important points to keep in mind are:

• Simplicity —  your logo should be easy to read and not too ‘busy’. Don’t use hard to read/fancy fonts and have something simple and straight to the point;
• Versatile — think about styles or shapes that are easily adaptable on different products/marketing materials. Also create your main logo and submarks that you can use on your socials etc; and
• Colour Palette — this is what your customer will notice first. Colour increases brand recognition up to 80% and is the biggest reason why consumers choose to buy. Your colours also play a large role in how your brand’s personality is perceived. 

Marketing the rebrand

The fun part! We had this as part of our marketing calendar and did a full campaign around the rebrand.

Before you begin the campaign, ensure that you have all your new marketing materials such as flyers, business cards, email templates, socials, product packaging and website ready to go. You don’t want to be using the old branding on anything.

We took our customers on the journey of the rebrand with us. We introduced what we were going to do and shared the behind the scenes with them.

Your customers love seeing the human side of your business and really connect with that.

A rebrand not only gives you a chance to freshen your look, reevaluate your key messaging and target market but it can also elevate your business and help you to be seen as an authority within your industry.