The Dox Design Guide on How to Roll Out Your New Brand

Let’s be real, Fur Friends. Launching a brand is no trivial thing, and should never be treated as such. Think about what you see when you drive past a brand new business: enormous banners and flags, maybe even those wacky inflatable dancing balloons… needless to say, people make a BIG deal out of grand openings. Your brand launch, even (& especially) if 100% online, deserves to be handled in the same way!

When we work with Dox Design clients on launching a new brand or a rebrand, we start with social media graphics and messaging. (Here is an example from one of our clients, Dogs of Charm City!) But actually, launching your brand involves a lot more in order to generate involvement and get your community of customers excited and motivated.

Since we have so many clients launching new brands after our work together, we wanted to provide a resource to you to aid in a successful brand launch. That’s almost as important as the new brand itself!

Remember, your brand is your full identity. Whether you’re new to the scene or changing things up, it’s important to communicate to your audience with more than just an announcement. Don’t just post once on Facebook saying, “Here’s our new website!” and call it a day. The voice of your brand should be loud, proud, and resonating with your audience so that they want to connect and be with you every step of the way!

So, my fur friends, here is Dox Design’s list of tips & tricks to rolling out and launching your new brand:

1. Do a Countdown
There are a number of different scenarios in which a countdown would be relevant: your company’s first website, a website makeover, a product launch, a new branding launch… the list goes on. Whatever it is, set a date.

Pro-tip: Holidays and weekends aren’t good for launching. Pick a day when you will have your audience’s attention!

Once you know the exact launch day, start counting down across social media and find the sweet spot: not too early, not too late. Think of something like, “30 days before we launch our new website! What are you most looking forward to? Let us know!” If you make it a big deal and start including your audience in the process, they will feel like it’s a big deal, so now is not the time to be shy.

2. Consider Giveaways
Giveaways are an easy way to garner attention AND engagement. People always want stuff, even if it’s small! Consider the giveaway as your guest’s party favors. If you want them to “show up” for your brand, show your appreciation and get people excited.

If your giveaway involves engagement, even better. Have your audience share and build awareness of your brand for a chance to get something in return. Make it fun!

Bonus: If you’re really feeling it, you could even consider a virtual launch party! That way, your audience can get to know you directly and ask all of the questions ‘face-to-face.’

3. Get Personal
Your customers are smart consumers. They’re not likely to get excited when you’re talking at them, but they do love stories. What’s your story? Why are you here?

When you start a new brand or give your brand a make-over, it’s not just about having better colors, hip graphics, and attractive designs. These elements are important, but they stand for something deeper. What’s the deeper meaning? How do you want your viewers to feel when they engage with your content?

As you prepare for your launch, get on camera and tell your story. Talk about how your brand and business got started, and why. Talk about how and why your mission is important. Get personal and invite your audience in! Whatever the story is, make sure your audience feels included and connect the story to them (i.e. our mission is to help X community deal with Y issue).

Note: If we’re working on a rebrand (rather than a new brand), this point is even MORE important because you want your audience to realize you still have the same important values as before. You don’t want to lose your current audience with the new brand because it feels like two stand-alone pieces of your story.

4. Make a Transition
Rather than launch a completely new change out of the blue, start by transitioning before your website or product launches. Transition your social media graphics to the new brand and expose your audience gradually to give them a sense of what’s coming and get them even more excited. Transitioning also helps minimize the overall work for you—slow and steady wins the race!

Even better, treat your audience to “sneak peeks” and make them feel like they’re getting some intel (because they are!). Giving people a sneak peek makes them feel involved in the process, garnering attention and engagement with everything that’s changing, not just your main logo. Which brings us to…

5. Have a Style Guide and Checklist
What’s new? What’s changing? You’ll want to keep your audience in the know, of course, but you want to make sure you’re prepared behind the scenes. To your audience, a new brand might just seem like new graphics, maybe even a new voice, but we (and you) know that branding involves a lot more.

Think about style guides or guidelines to keep your brand and voice on point. There should be guides and checklists about fonts, color schemes, aesthetics, and even grammar (to encapsulate the way your brand “talks” to your audience.) Having these specific brand guidelines ensures that your new brand replaces your old one across all platforms as well as ensures consistency.

Luckily, Dox Design creates these guidelines for you, and much more. If this how-to guide seemed like a lot to handle, rest assured. We’re here to streamline this process, generate ideas, and make sure that launching your brand is exactly as it should be: manageable, fresh, and most importantly, exciting!

And here’s one last way to roll out your brand: goodies for the fans! As we mentioned earlier, people LOVE “stuff,” but offering matching apparel and other treats on launch day is a fun and engaging way to celebrate! Check out our shop and see what matches your brand identity!

Alrighty, Fur Friends. We hope this was helpful. Congratulations on getting here because if you read this blog post, that means you are either ready to launch or you’re in the midst of piecing together a new brand. It’s an exciting time, but also an important time. If you’re investing in a new brand, that means it’s worth it to do it right.

The implementation is JUST as important as the pieces of the brand we deliver to you. What good does a new brand do when it sits there idle behind the scenes and without an audience to resonate? We hope these tips and tricks for launching your new brand helps get the ideas flowing. And, of course, our 1:1 clients get access to our Design Lab, where you can book a full day of design work with us to help with whatever you need. So, if you need some help piecing together your #droolworthy launch materials, we’ve got you!

If you’re ready to launch a new brand or simply want a brand audit to get you started on the path to a brand you can drool over, click here to set up your FREE 20-minute brand audit.