How to Rebrand your Content

The phrase “content rebranding” is being discussed more online now due to the economic recovery. If your content is your face to customers and the brand they consume, then it must change too.

And your content is vital to your company’s success. Some businesses (e.g., restaurants) have already gone through this content remodelling change as the pandemic completely rewrote their business models, leaving them to offer different products and services to different customers.

You might not need a complete brand overhaul, which is kind of risky and scary because your old brand equity might be lost in the shuffle. A nice website design refresh and a little redevelopment of your content might be the best solution after the pandemic period.

Your content is a key part of your brand image (i.e., value proposition to your customers). Your content essentially, through words and images, conveys the promise of satisfaction you’re making to prospects and customers.

The old promise your brand delivered might soon be irrelevant or even an impairment to content engagement, Google rankings and sales. You may not need a complete brand overhaul. If it’s just off kilter or been bumped out by a better offer from your competitor, you can build on the brand equity you’ve built.

I think you could call it a little bit of brand hacking. Even if it’s a slight change, it’s a good idea to delve into the topic so you’ve got a better handle on what you need to do and how you’ll do it via your content.

Agencies Like Brand Overhauls

Working with advertising agencies, I’ve seen a few rebrands or brand shifts. Most were visual rebrands and not a big rewrite or repositioning of the content itself. And the UVP didn’t change. Just colors, phrasing, and layouts basically.

The assumption was that the style of the web design was what created engagement and sales, not the content.

In fact, the design shouldn’t be started until the content strategy and content is finished. The designers will need to read it and experience it before beginning the design.

Successful Rebranding Example

Here’s a quick example of a rebrand or what some might call a brandshift. My client wanted to upgrade their packaging division, so they created a new website and the site would have a new look, with a new brand, and of course content that focuses strictly on the packaging business.

Here’s the old site, which you can see lacks flair. It also conflicted with the company’s other services and had to be moved to its own domain. The key services and the value proposition weren’t clear or compelling. They projected the products and value as a commodity which generated poor quality, time wasting leads.

And the new brand shifted version. This version drew the interest of serious major brand managers who needed packaging design and retail displays that would differentiate and catch attention. The value proposition was easier to understand and the appearance and content was more attractive, interesting and authoritative.

Rewrite According to Analytics Data?

Most of the content is the same as on any other site, fluffy and empty calories so to speak. If you’re rebranding your content, certainly your marketing pages will change and your social posts will differ from now on. But also, it is wise to rewrite blog posts too, for the sake of new leads.

And rewriting content will help you understand better why it didn’t work and how you can improve it so it’s effective and true to your brand. If you have access to high quality analytics, it can drive a perpetual optimization of your content funnel. Data driven content optimization is the ultimate.

Rather than going on experience and hunches, you stay flexible and adjust everything according to whether data says it is working. Let the data guide your marketing.

So content is something that’s kind of liquid and needs to be adjusted according to sales results.

Content branding is an interesting and rewarding topic so let’s explore it further. Please do bookmark this post because I will expand on the topic with more examples as time permits.

Old Successes Getting Stale?

One branding expert says “the biggest obstacle to your future success is your past success.” And that’s got a few bright people wondering about a brand refresh, or a brand shift to realign to new, evolving customer preferences.

Few businesses really think about what their content says about their brand. In fact, many businesses hire foreign writers to write quick, simple, cheap content, something that actually ruins their brand. Very costly savings.

Do you Need to Rebrand Your Content?

are you getting fewer online leads?
is your content more than 5 years old?
is your page/post engagement falling?
do you notice your competition have moved onto new designs, features, offers and sales approaches?
do you feel good about your Website?
does your website make you neglect or avoid digital focused communications?
do you avoid posting your content on social media because it’s out of date, or low quality?
do you believe your content is generating leads and revenue?
are prospects responding to your content pieces or news?

If you answered yes to just a few of the above, it could be your low quality stale content is hurting your image and ruining sales — the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do. Respect digital content because it represents you and will define you to your market. You deserve the best possible.

Everything They Read and See — Is You!

Everything your visitors and customers see on your website or Facebook page is your brand. Now, as we enter the post pandemic period, customers attitudes are evolving — the market is shifting, and your content must move with them.

They’re going to be more positive and eager to buy.

In this post we talk about your brand in customer’s eyes and on creating better, increasingly relevant content that they can trust and rely on. We want to understand why some content creates customers and some content doesn’t. If you have a content strategist, they can write, test and keep improving content until it does create a customer.

What Does Good Content Do?

makes you relevant to customers/visitors
creates an obsession with you or your company as the only choice for them
creates authority and trust
accelerates customer actions
creates a deeper connection between you and your customers
keeps you continuously top of mind
generates market leadership

One thing for sure, if visitors don’t see a value proposition they like, trust and want on your website, they will leave.

Many Realtors for instance avoid content, and just put property listings on their homepage. This makes the Realtor look like a commodity. The Realtor actually has to be more important than the listing, as valuable as houses for sale are. The value proposition can’t be the listing, it has to be the relationship and the services of the Realtor.

Stuck in Past Success

Even top businesses have difficulty letting go of old glories. However, smart owners know times change and the “sweet spot” for the market has moved. They know a new brand positioning is necessary.

Being stuck in past success is an interesting perspective because there’s actually a lot of reasons why your brand doesn’t work so well. Some might be subtle. And what are the odds it will shine in this coming post pandemic period, where consumer’s moods and values will change. 2021 will be different.

In this video Nate and Emily London Miller, discuss how your brand is prospects perception of your company. In fact, your brand is their perception of your relevant, personalized unique value proposition. And your visual brand is part of your content, so it’s wise that it works to get your UVP across crystal clear and aligns with your worded messages.

Will Your Content Get your UVP Across?

And when we talk about rebranding here, we’re talking about how well your content will get your value proposition across to prospects. It’s hard to imagine, but your weak brand might even be hurting your performance on Google and Facebook. Yes, everything recirculates and impacts each part of your marketing mix.

Your brand is more than your web design, color pallet and logo, or your slogan. It’s your services selection, service names, headings, word usage, service promise, imagery, and tone of voice.

It’s the voice of everything the customer sees and engages with. And your website content is vital. It’s competitive out there on the web so your content has to be really good. And it has to serve many different results and objectives from impact to engagement to search engine rankings and sales conversion.

And if your big competitor’s brands are very powerful, well advertised via big budgets and strategically managed, they drown out any competition and make you invisible.

Aarin Chung of Community Influencer

Aarin Chung of Community Influencer talks with St Louis Realtor Michael Abney’s approach to building an empire and how blogging and content aided his new brokerage’s rise. Aarin has some excellent Youtube videos you should take some time to take in.

His branded content strategy focuses on lifestyle and the actions that home buyers are into now.

Screenshot courtesy of inspirerealtystl.com

What Does Rebranding Content Mean?

The topics, keywords, visual style, visuals quality, color, fonts, layout, brand story, media, content freshness, along with benefits and features described are all part of your content brand. At the core of the message that visitors receive from all of that content on your website — is a clear brand message.

The tone of your content is delivered via word selection, storytelling, relevant topics, mood of the visuals, color, and descriptions you use. It’s how you say it. When visitors and customers have seen your content over and over repeatedly, and receive the same message in the same style, it’s good for brand communication. However, it does get stale, just like your web design. Then you update or rebrand.

What’s Wrong with Our Content?

When the market changes, your content ceases to have the same impact, even though it’s well written. It could be covering irrelevant topics, not sophisticated enough, isn’t engaging enough, has poor visuals, tired layout, doesn’t convey authority, expertise, has low informativeness, or it’s written in a stodgy style your audience simply doesn’t like.

In a nutshell, it’s missing the point.

The point is what the visitor wants and needs and what they believe about you and your company. Are you giving them the package they want? Are you presenting it in a way that fascinates them and makes them want you? Better still, is it making them decide that you are the only one for them?

Many times when your content doesn’t rank well in Google, it could reflect that your content isn’t engaging people anymore. You may see time on page, page views, site immersion, clickthroughs, visits to the about page, and other engagement and funnel conversion signals are falling.

Content and Problems with Google Rankings

Google traffic and Facebook/Twitter referrals are affected by a poor quality brand and content.

Google can detect such lack of engagement of your visitors (via Chrome usage data) and lower your rankings. An irrelevant blog can result in site bounces making your site look bad to Google. A poor brand experience means bloggers and journalists don’t want to talk about your company or product, share it on social media, or link to your website from one of their pages. SEO is impacted.

That’s why it’s important to keep your web content fresh and stimulating with new images and topics, with a new angle on them that reflects the current mood.

It’s part of a professional SEO campaign to rewrite old content, keep it up to date frequently, and to present key new issues that your business solves for customers.

But if the brand UVP itself is having issues, the copy might not matter. If your brand just doesn’t work, you need to rebrand to get it back where the market is. It’s right that your brand is unique but how does it appear vs top competitors? Should you mimic the top competitors and find other ways to differentiate?

Consider your content presentation and what its says about whether your company is still relevant.

How do You Rebrand Your Content?

You redesign it within a plan to cater to your prospect’s and customer’s reasons for buying.

You can use market research, your analytics statistics, a brand positioning statement, style guidelines, and a list of messaging goals as your material for the plan. Get some opinions on the brand image of competitors and what it might be that’s making them more relevant and valuable.

With your overview and specific points of differentiation and value, you can write posts or videos that are totally focused on what customers are interested in and what’s missing for them. The posts catch their attention, makes an impact, and makes you the missing link they’re looking for to justify their choice of provider.

In terms of style and voice, the flow and word usage has to be adjusted to make it easy to consume.

If you’re a Realtor for example, in Florida, where it’s mostly detached houses for sale that buyers are interested in, you’ll want a brand image that connects them with a Florida house. And then there’s the amazing lifestyle free of cold and snow, with low taxes. Your content will reflect your intimate knowledge of where the best houses in the best Florida neighborhoods are.

Your content reaffirms what they believe, but creates new information that builds a path to fulfillment. Does your current content pave that path?

Why is Your Current Content and Company Brand Weak?

This is the question that’s hard to answer without good analytics. This is why AI analytics and predictive intelligence is such a big thing today. It allows companies to test content engagement and funnel success and know what customers want next. Being ahead of the demand curve is a huge advantage. And it allows content to be personalized for each visitor.

Look at what most of your visitors are reading and engaged in. These most interesting posts tell you where they’re at mentally and emotionally. I use a filter in Google analytics that finds the pages with the highest engagement where the visitor clicks at least 4 pages. When a visitor is on your site a long time and visits many pages, they are the ones who liked your content the most. You made an impact on them.

Topics are everything. Choosing the right topics, using the right keywords and writing in a clear compelling fashion is important. Frilly, fluffy copywriting of course that’s hard to read and comprehend may be a big issue. If people are barely interested in the topic, they won’t wade through your 10,000 word pillar, cornerstone content piece.

It’s only on topics that they’re really into that excites them and where your brand gets seen and respected. Find those compelling topics.

Rebranding has to examine what’s really happening on your site along with a thoughtful analysis of what’s working and what isn’t. Your analytics will tell you which content pieces are leading to new customers or sales revenue.

But then, this is all the past. Changes over time in your analytics tells you how market interest is changing. For instance high volume keywords you depended on before aren’t creating traffic anymore. That’s a signal that the market has changed, and your content and SEO strategy has to change.

What is Your Brand Story?

A lot of companies today are into the brand story today.

Your brand story is the “cohesive narrative that encompasses the facts and feelings that are created by your brand (or business, if you prefer)” — from echostories.com

So your brand story tells a tale of your company’s past, present and future. It’s all made up, so you need to rewrite that story so it fits customers values and preferences and expectations.

Your brand story has to be aligned with your actual real value proposition and your content otherwise it’s not believable.

But the brand story isn’t picked up in a brand statement or even a key story you tell. It’s created through your content and how the visitor experiences your content. Your brand story is contained in the blogs, marketing pages, visuals, about us page, and reviews. Visitors read into what you really are based on your content.

Your brand story helps you select topics, organize the content paths, and gives you a benchmark to gauge success.
And the point to a brand story is to create impact, relevance, trust and capture the visitors intent. Your content can’t create customer intent, it can only capture what intent they have when they arrive.

Some marketers talk about brand stories as interesting anecdotes that miraculously entertain and create sales.
Containing the visitors wish for satisfaction and certainty in your blogs and marketing pages and social posts can be very effective, if they’re credible. But a lot of times, “stories” are fiction and readers might feel manipulated.

And the stories can be off putting for some of your visitors, so if you’re writing brand story narratives, personalities, events and outcomes, it’d better be good and believable.

How to Shift Your Content

redefine your brand shift and what it is you’re solving
evaluate carefully your body of content and whether it’s getting your value proposition across quickly and clearly
create a new up to date list of interesting content topics that are most compelling to your audience
get professional opinions from industry people who know what they’re talking about (not amateurs or outsiders)
check topics areas your market leaders have covered and ask yourself why they included them
identify where you need to go and what will draw visitors to your branding shifting content
list your top keywords for traffic and for highest quality targeted prospects
look for better visuals, video, and marketing pieces that make better impact
do ppc advertising which focuses solely on your upgrades, shift and new positioning
do social posting to focus on your new topics, keywords, upgrades, shift and new positioning

Don’t forget to integrate lead magnets into your content as well. These are more immediate rewards such as a new product, new home listings, a case study or customer testimonial.

Content Rebranding Pointers

Before you start writing, make sure you’ve create flow chart with your 3 main brand objectives at center with relevant arrows to points that will prove this new positioning. Know specifically what the repositioning points are and how you can convey them powerfully to your audience.

You must know what your value proposition is and why it’s better than competitors otherwise you can’t communicate the advantages to your prospects. Without seeing that advantage quickly, they will leave.

Consider your narrative and how your content is a conversation with one person — your ideal customer. This helps get rid of confusion and brings clarity to your brand. Branding is all about laser-sharp clarity which causes a customer to make a decision.

list the profile of your new targeted audience (if it is different than before)
review your brand statement and your personalized, relevant, unique value proposition – see it in words
focus on the target — make topics more relevant to your best lead prospects
focus on your 3 main branding strengths of your new positioning so it makes an impact
develop real world customer usage stories that prospects can relate to and which help stimulate the right emotions
ensure the topic, issues, and treatments all relate to your UVP
list your top 10 branding objectives along with points that show how each relates to customer pain points
create narratives that make your UVP and slogan seem sensible and logical — the why the customer will ask about
insert or use industry expert comments and quotes
use phrases that very subtly imply or suggest the next steps for the prospect – get them looking ahead past their frustration to interaction with you
use more emotional words and phrases that bring out the feelings of comfort, trust and confidence they need to feel
rewrite copy and pages until they read natural with good flow
use better graphics and unique relevant photographs
make initial paragraphs short to allow readers to ease into your topic (good for mobile screens too)
be friendly, positive, and welcome the prospect to continue their investigation into your brand
re-edit many times to get rid of the fluff and week out confusion (read it on your smartphone)

So that’s just a few tips and an overall look at content rebranding. It’s takes some mental gymnastics to determine how to adjust and refresh old content and to develop new content to get your brand shift across.

Think hard about what is changing, use your website stats and news feeds to zero in on these changes.

I think it’s wise to work with a branding expert you can trust. If they’re a pro, they likely won’t take too much time to tell you what’s needed. Avoid a web design agency with no serious branding expertise. They could really get it wrong.

An expert’s brand audit will tell you if they understand your industry, your challenges, and deliver professional quality insight into what needs to be brand-shifted.

Conclusion about Rebranding Content

Start with your new desired audience. Write about interesting topics, news, research, stories, business challenges, lifestyle, and human interest topics which align you with their deepest values and preferences.

In your content, be transparent and let them get to know you in terms of your promise. They want to know you can fulfill the promise, trust you, like you and want to connect with you.

Home listings, products, news events, and all else is temporary. What lasts is a powerful brand laser-etched into their heart and mind. Become relevant to them via your content and create a compelling reason to contact you right now.

Do you have no time for content, SEO and creating online leads? It might be time to review my Realtor marketing service packages.