As a company grows, it’s only natural that it should change over time. The brand imagery may change, the services they provide can change. For some companies, like Saas (software as a service) teams, ongoing change is part of the expected process.
However, while change can address pain points and make products more accessible to a wider audience, it can also risk cutting off those who have shown support for the longest. How do you make sure that your innovation doesn’t turn to alienation?
Communication is Key
Are big changes coming? The worst thing you can do is roll them out without telling people about them in advance. For instance, if you make major changes to the user interface of software that your clients use without giving them plenty of warning, you are going to find some very angry clients on the other side of the phone.
Have a soft launch, use email marketing to build-up to the changes and tell them what you’re changing and why you’re changing it before you go ahead and pull the lever. Some may not like it, but you could win even more over before the big change.
Branch, Don’t Pivot
Where possible, consistency is always a great strategy to take with your branding. Naturally, this piece is about changing that branding so complete consistency isn’t on the cards. However, it’s still wise to grow out from the same core that your existing brand has.
Don’t suddenly change every aspect of your look, voice, and values. Branch out from the existing brand, evolving it over time to suit a changing market or new product offerings. It’s going to be less immediately jarring to those who have been following the company for a long time, and you’re still going to have some brand recognition. The only time that it’s really justifiable to change the brand completely is if you’re going for a total relaunch because the current paradigm just isn’t working.
Test and Listen
There are a lot of lessons to be learned from past failed rebranding efforts and product “version X.0” releases. Go back and learn from them. In many cases, one of the biggest failures is the lack of testing. Launching a changed product or service that isn’t just different, but objectively worse, is an easy way to lose respect.
The software development concept of regression testing should be foremost on your mind. You need to look carefully and see if the changes you made will create new problems. Are you letting in three bugs by getting rid of one? Beta launches with select members of the community can help you get the vital market feedback that you need so that, by the time you launch it for real, it’s likely to be much better received.
Ensure the Need
Ever since web 2.0 happened, how many times have we seen perfectly workable websites and platforms change completely without adding any functionality that their community was specifically asking for? Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Imgur, you will still find plenty of people who are asking these to change back or using workarounds to stay on the older versions.
Streaming platform Rabb.it effectively canceled itself by investing in a major update that none of its viewers wanted, would pay for, or would invest in. If you’re making big changes, you simply must look into whether or not they’re needed in the first place. Don’t be tone-deaf to what your audience has to say.
Respect the Brand and the Fans
You might feel like your existing brand, products, and services are outdated, and even holding you back. However, your customers might not have the same relationship with it. They might genuinely hold some affection for it, so if you start trashing over the old heritage of the branding, it’s effectively like stomping over their feelings. Your changes should be transcendental and improvements on the heritage that you have built leading up to this point, rather than direct contradictions to what made your brand fans stand behind the company in the first place. Try to respect how your most valued and loyal customers might think about the branding, even if you have truly grown to hate it.
It may be impossible to please everyone with every small and large change your business and brand undergoes. However, it is important to not lose the core connection you have with your oldest customers. They have proven themselves to have the highest lifetime value, after all, so why would you turn them away?