There are lots of reasons why people want to get a rebrand. And there is no single answer to the question ‘should I get my branding done?’ (sorry/not sorry). I do know that every person I’ve worked with on their voice over brand has thought about why they’re doing it. It’s never been a rushed decision.
Maybe you can relate. You’re just starting your voiceover career and everyone keeps telling you you need to get a logo before you start working, but you’re not sure. Maybe you’ve been working for a few years, but the logo you have was self-made – you like it, but there is something about it that doesn’t quite feel right. It could be that you love really your logo, but you cringe when you share your website with potential clients.
Rebranding can feel expensive. It can feel difficult. It can feel out of reach or completely overwhelming. But – when it’s done well – it can feel great.
Here are some questions to help you decide if and when to rebrand.
1. Does your brand tell a story?
Voice artists know just how important a story is. Stories have power and show personality. Your brand should too. Having a clear brand personality – and knowing how to show that visually – will help you convey your story to others. Your story makes you interesting and it helps you stand apart from your competitors. WHY you do what you is equally important as what you do.
I can’t put it any better than Simon Sinek, so I won’t. I’d love you to watch this. It’s well worth 20 minutes of your time.
For us – discovering our ‘why’ has – quite honestly – fundamentally changed B Double E. So much so I’ll need to write a blog just about that another time.
What is our why? Helping voiceovers to be seen and heard.
2. Are you charging the prices you want to?
I’m not saying ‘charge your worth’ – I don’t feel we can attach a price tag to someone’s value – a topic for another day – but you should be charging prices that are right for you. Prices that allow you to live as well as work. To support your family, put food on the table, enable retirement etc etc. If your brand feels cheap or amateur to you (or to potential clients) you’re likely not going to be able to charge the prices you want for your services.
No one would spend £5 on a budget-range bar of chocolate with 25% cocoa. But a bar made only with organic ingredients, with unusual but decadent flavour, 85% cocoa solids, fair trade and hand-made by a chocolatier – a £5 bar starts sounding too cheap.
Strong, confident brands are more profitable – think Apple, Louis Vuitton, Porsche, Rolex. They have strong brands, they know their target audience, they know their values and they know their mission. It’s not sleek logos, clever straplines or fancy websites that make them profitable. It’s because they know who they are and what makes them different to their competitors.
Branding is about the perception of you and your services and products. If you want to know more about that read my ‘what is a brand’ blog.
3. Does your current brand stand out?
The voiceover market is a crowded one. Standing out in that crowd is essential to getting work. Discovering your USP (unique selling proposition) or finding your fabulous is the foundation of all successful brands. Trying to appeal to everyone results in your brand becoming bland. Discovering all the things that make you unique and special helps you to standout and this makes you easier to find.
I wrote about how I found our gardener here (why people should visit your website) and how that was about me refining and refining my search. I could have hired any one of hundreds of gardeners that were cheaper and available sooner – but I had shared values with the company we did hire and that has resulted in a garden we absolutely love. Yes, it cost more than other options. Yes, we had to wait around 18 months for them to be available. Yes, it was absolutely worth it.
4. Are you getting work from your dream clients?
Stand out and be different. That sounds like the point above and I’ll explain.
Some people won’t like you for standing out and that is fine. Because others will like you for it. You’ll probably enjoy working with clients you share common ground with over those that you don’t. And the end project will likely be better for it too.
A great fashion designer doesn’t design things everyone wants to wear. A brilliant chef doesn’t cook food that everyone loves. Teachers don’t all teach in the same way. We don’t all want the same things in our homes. The biggest companies with the highest profits don’t appeal to everyone. Businesses with a strong brand have many people that don’t ‘get’ what they do. The biggest brands in the world have people whose stomachs turn just at the thought of wearing xxx brand, or owning xxx mobile phone or buying from xxx online business.
I know the way I work will not suit every voiceover. I’m not the right person for everyone to work with – be that for branding or website design. Some people will hate the way we keep talking about bees. Others may just connect to another service provider’s way of working more than mine. Or timescales match better.
I can’t help everyone. And that is a good thing!
Why work with someone who thinks you’re ‘meh’ or says ‘it’s alright I guess’, when you could work with someone that thinks what you do is amazing and the absolute best. Those are the clients I want to work with.
A brand should help bring you your dream clients. If it’s not doing so, it may be time to rebrand.
5. Have you outgrown your current brand?
Businesses change. They grow, evolve and move. Even the biggest brands evolve and change. Did you know Google started out life called ‘BackRub’? Who remembers Marathon Bars renaming to Snickers in the 1990s? SONY started life as ‘Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo’. What about us and B Double E? Rob used to be known as Bee Productive. I worked as ‘Mrs Bee’.
Sometimes our old name, logo or colours don’t represent what we now do. Sometimes what we do changes too. It’s normal and positive to change. And sometimes, because of those changes, we want to reassess and rebrand. It’s completely normal.
I do believe that any good brand should allow for some change and growth though. It’s one of the reasons I don’t brand voiceovers on the sound of their voice. Voices can change. Or it can be wide and varied to begin with (any character voices or accent specialists will recognise this). And the type of work a voice does can change too.
But sometimes, there comes a time when we need to rebrand. It happened to us and it was one of the most positive changes we made. You wouldn’t be reading this now if Rob and I hadn’t decided to rebrand and start working together.
6. Do you love your current brand?
This might seem like a fluffy, overly sentimental question to ask, but it’s such an important one.
Why? If you absolutely love your brand, you’ll have no problem telling people about it. Chances are you’ll never stop talking about it. At every given opportunity you’ll proudly share your website or hand someone a business card (I do still use them!).
How do you feel about your branding?
Do you think… I’m excited to show my website to potential clients. I’m confident about how my social feeds look. I love showing people my logo?
Or do you think… This needs improving. It doesn’t feel very professional. I used to love it, but now there is something that’s just not quite right?
If you don’t love your brand, no one else will either.
Trust your gut
There are a million and one reasons why you might want to invest in branding. Those reasons will be different for everyone. If you’re looking to rebrand, find someone you can connect with – someone who really gets you and what you do. A designer that works in a way that you’ll enjoy too. It might be me. It might not be.
Trust your instincts. If you have a brand and you’ve got a niggling feeling something isn’t right – trust yourself that something needs to change. And if you chat to someone about branding and it just doesn’t feel right – find someone else to work with.
I promise you when you find that person to work with, that person that really understands what you want and you’re comfortable telling them honestly what you want from working together, you’ll create something you both love. Whatever that may be.
If you’re interested in chatting to me about branding have a look at some of my past projects and ask yourself all the above questions. If you think we would work together well, then head over to my branding packages page here.