In all the hustle and bustle of starting and running a new business, many entrepreneurs rush through the process of developing their brand. This results in a brand that may not reflect the company culture and mission once the company is up and running, leaving many owners eager to undergo a rebrand once they have the time.
Rebranding your dental practice is a fairly involved process, but with a little research and help from those who have done it before, it can be a pretty painless process that delivers lots of benefits to your business.
This rebranding checklist will get you started on the process. We’ll talk about why we rebrand businesses and all the things that go into it.
The Importance of Your Brand
Your brand tells potential clients a lot about your business. It not only gives them a business name and logo to look for in the parking lot, it tells them what to expect when they choose to do business with you. You can connect with them emotionally and make them feel more connected to your practice through your branding.
If your branding is on point, you should have no trouble bringing people in and putting together long patient lists that have kept you busy for years. But if your branding falls short, it may give people the wrong impression and be time for a change.
Why We Rebrand
Most companies don’t completely rebrand their businesses unless they have good reason to. Sometimes we update our branding to keep up with the times, but more often than not, a full rebrand is the result of a merger, expansion into new markets or services, negative publicity, or legal issues.
If you’ve got good reason to invest in a full rebrand, it’s worth doing right. Doing it right involves planning ahead and putting together a rebranding checklist for yourself.
Why is a Rebranding Checklist Important?
The rebranding process can become long and involved if you haven’t got a plan. Utilizing a rebranding checklist to keep important items at the front of your mind can help you prepare for your undertaking. Let’s take a look at some of the things that go into a successful rebrand.
Define Your Brand
Before you can develop a new brand that’s compelling to your audience, you’ve got to know what you want your brand to be. That involves deciding how you want your brand to fit into the lives of your patients, and it’s the first step on our rebranding checklist.
A great way to determine what your brand should look like is by utilizing the Storybrand framework. The 7 part framework is simple.
- A hero (your patient)
- Has a problem they need solved
- Meets a guide (you and your practice)
- That provides them with a plan
- That calls them to an action
- That results in success
- And helps them avoid failure
What does your role as a guide look like? How do you want your role to be perceived? The cost of rebranding can get quite high if you don’t know what you’re looking for, and you find yourself asking designers for endless revisions on logos and marketing materials.
Taking the time to see how your practice fits the role as a guide will give you a clearer understanding of what kind of rebrand you’re looking for and which elements will best fit that vision. It will also make your rebrand much more budget friendly.
Choose a Name
Choosing a name can be one of the hardest parts of starting a business. You want something that reflects you and your mission, something you believe in, and something that you’ll want to stick with for a long time. If you’ve taken the time to define your brand, this step will be substantially easier.
A great name can help you build patient bases by giving your potential clientele information that’s important to them. Maybe it tells them you’re local. Perhaps it tells them what you specialize in. Decide how you are going to help your patients(heroes) specifically. Incorporating that message into your name will tell them they are in the right place.
Choose your Colors
Once you’ve established your brand identity, you’ll want to choose some colors that reinforce the values espoused by your practice. Different colors can evoke different emotions, and the colors you choose can subliminally reinforce or clash with your branding message.
For instance, the color blue can convey feelings of trust and loyalty but can also feel cold. A green logo can convey health and freshness but can also feel boring, depending upon the shade of green and how it’s used in your logo.
Doing a little research on color psychology in marketing and branding before choosing your brand colors will ensure the colors you choose paint the picture you want them to. A good designer will also be able to help you with this important rebranding checklist item.
Choose Your Logo
Now that you’ve spent some time working on defining your brand and choosing your name and colors, it’s time to roll all those elements into a great new logo.
Your logo is the first thing people see when they look into your practice. As such, a good logo should convey everything about your brand. If you want to convey an upscale experience, it should convey that. If you’d prefer people to see your practice as a pleasant experience for the whole family, your logo should convey that. Your patient demographics are a good starting point.
If you want a lot of options to look at before deciding on one, there are many great crowdsourcing sites online that can connect you with a number of different designers at an affordable rate.
Update your Brand Book or Style Guide
Every element of your branding should remain consistent at all times. The same logos, colors, fonts, and other branding elements should look the same, whether they are displayed on a screen or printed on a page. Creating and maintaining a comprehensive brand book is an important part of ensuring your branding remains consistent across all mediums.
If you didn’t have one before, you’ll want to create one to keep your branding consistent in the future. If you had one for your old brand, make sure to thoroughly scrub the old art and copy and replace it with the new materials, so no one accidentally uses old imagery.
Create a New Website
Since your website is one of the first places most people will look before contacting you, it’s a crucial component of a successful rebranding plan. This is the place you can use compelling images and design to tell your patients what kind of experience they can expect when working with your practice. Give them all that info on the front page, and you’ll get them in the door.
Update Search Engine and Social Media Branding
In addition to your website, many potential patients will check places like Facebook and Google to find more info on your business. This also gives them the ability to read reviews, so updating your branding on these sites is an important step on your rebranding checklist.
Toss Anything with Your Old Branding
With branding, consistency is key. If the name hasn’t changed in the rebrand, many practice owners try to save a buck or two by hanging onto unused marketing materials that contain the old brand. This is a bad idea.
When we see marketing materials with a different logo, colors, etc., we assume that either there are two entities in the market with the same name or one with an identity crisis. Neither one is an attractive look for any business. Make sure to dump all old materials and send out new materials with your fresh branding.
Let People Know About Your New Brand
Once you’ve completed your rebrand, you’ll want to let your current and potential patients know about it. While not necessarily part of the rebranding process, it certainly deserves a spot on your rebranding checklist.
By issuing press releases and creating TV and radio advertisements, you’ll let people know that the dental practice they loved is operating under a new name or that the company they loved has merged into a new entity and will still provide the same excellent service.
Rebranding a Recently Purchased Practice
One reason a dental practice may choose to undergo a full rebrand is because of a change in ownership. If you’ve recently purchased an existing dental practice, your rebranding checklist may look different than if you’re rebranding a practice that you started.
The difference between buying an existing dental practice and starting your own is that an existing dental practice typically comes with an existing patient base. You’ll need to make sure those existing customers know their family provider is still there.
Consult the Pros
While this rebranding checklist will get you on top of the things you’ll need to keep in mind when rebranding a dental practice, there’s a good chance you’ll need to enlist the help of pros to make it all happen. You may need help with designing, writing a press release, or updating your website and social profiles. Reaching out to the pros will help answer any rebranding questions you may have and provide a plan that leads you to the success of your own.
