10 steps to successfully launch your creative business rebrand

So you've been working on your flash new brand. You've got a new logo, snazzy photos, updated packaging, and brand assets that are set to wow. But how do you share that with the world to make sure that everybody gets as hyped as you are? Well, I'm going to tell you all about it in this article where I walk you through 10 steps to successfully launch a rebrand for your creative business.

1. Decide on your launch goal

Choosing a goal for your launch is how you’ll measure it’s success. Your goal should be something that makes sense for your overall business goals, and you can set good, better, and best numbers to hit. Some goals you could have for your rebrand launch are:

• Comments
• Signing up to your email list
• Entering a competition
• Coming to an online or in-person launch party
• Enquiring about your services
• Buying your products

2. Pick a key message

Repetition is key with any launch and messaging, so when it comes to your rebrand launch, you need to decide what the key message or themes are that you want to talk about.

For me, when I relaunched as Maker & Moxie instead of Black & White Studios, it was important for me to get people excited about the name, and the way to do that was to tell my audience what it meant. Everything I created was about renaming, including why renaming is important, how you rename your brand, why I renamed my business, and what Maker & Moxie means.

3. Choose your platforms

You are likely already using some platforms to market your business, so it should be pretty easy to decide which platforms to jump on for your rebrand launch. Don’t forget to think of marketing ideas other than social media!

Some different platforms you can choose to make use of are:

• Social media (Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Pinterest)
• Long-form content (Email, podcast, YouTube, blog, etc)
• Communities (Reddit, Facebook groups, Discord servers, Circle communities etc)
• Launch platforms (ie. Producthunt)
• Collaborations (Brands, other creators, etc)

4. Set a launch date

So that you can plan everything leading up to the launch, you first need to decide when you’re going to launch!

Think carefully about this – you probably don’t want to be launching while you’re on holiday, have a big convention happening, or are launching a bunch of products at the same time. Take all of these things into consideration and then set a launch date.

(Top tip: I always choose a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday to launch things since my timezone means a lot of people aren’t online on my Monday, and most people are busy or not interested in buying on a Friday! So think about the little things too!)

5. Set up phases

Within a launch, there are three main phases:

1. Tease (approx 4–6 weeks): the period of time where you’re getting people intrigued and curious about what you're doing
2. Coming soon (approx 1–2 weeks): the period before launch where people know that you are going to be releasing and relaunching your brand.
3. Launch day & week (approx 3–7 days): the specific launch period around the day that you launch.

Open up a calendar and decide when these phases are going to be for you and how long they’ll last.

6. Set your schedule

Once you know when each phase of your rebrand launch is going to be, you're gonna identify when you want to talk about it in terms of how often, what days, and what times.

First decide how often you’ll post about your rebrand. The cadence of your content should ramp up the closer to launch that you get. For example, your launch plan could look like this:

• Tease: Once a week
• Coming soon: 2–3 times a week
• Launch: at least once every day

Then choose what days and times you’ll post about your rebrand on each platform. There are two ways you can make this decision:

1. Whatever works best for you: If you’re gonna be online after dinner and that's the best time for you to be posting, do it then. If you like to post first thing in the morning, do it then. If you don't wanna post on the weekends, don't do that.
2. Informed by analytics: Check your social media analytics and look into the data for your podcast, email marketing, or other platforms, to see when are the best days and times to post for your audience. Note: some of these analytics might not be in your time zone, (Instagram’s analytics on your phone are in PST for example) so make sure to convert to your timezone!

Now put this plan for when you’re going to be posting into your content planning tool of choice. I use and recommend Notion or Buffer, but you can use whatever works for you!

7. Plan your content

Now you’ve got a content calendar set up, you can start planning the content that’s going to fill all of those slots in each phase.

When you first tease your launch, what are you going to say? What are you going to tease? What are you going to do to get people intrigued? Don’t forget to keep your content on-brand in terms of the topics, voice, and visuals!

If you’re stuck for launch teasing content ideas, you could try posts with:

• A big change coming
• Poll or question box for guesses
• Glimpses of the rebrand
• Waitlist announcement

Then when you’re ready to tell your audience that it's a rebrand, what are you going to say? What are you going to show them? What are you going to ask them?

When you’re ready to let your audience in on the secret, you could share:

• Sneak peeks of new branded assets
• Timelapse/s of you working on the rebrand
• WIP shots of the rebrand (sketches, ideas, rejected options, etc)
• BTS about how you’re working on the rebrand
• The process you went/are going through
• Countdown to launch

And then do the same for during launch week. When launch week rolls around, it’s time to tell all, with content about:

• Why the rebrand?
• How you knew now was the right time for the rebrand?
• How you feel about the new brand now
• Whether you did it yourself or hired someone and why
• The first thing you redesigned with your new brand
• Your favourite part of the new brand
• What the rebrand will mean for your customers/clients
• Showcase the whole rebrand
• Before and after
• Spot the difference
• Trademark announcement

8. Create the content

With a full calendar of content planned out, you’re ready to go ahead and create it all. Whether it's graphics, taking photos, making Instagram Reels, writing blog posts, outlining press releases, or recording podcasts, it’s time to get creating. Create whatever makes the most sense for the platforms you chose and the types of content you like making!

9. Schedule the content

The best way that I have found to have an easier, calmer launch of any kind, is to schedule as much in advance as possible. This means that during the launch you can focus on engaging with people, replying to comments, celebrating, sharing stuff on stories, and doing all the stuff that you have to do in the moment, instead of last minute panicking, trying to write your content, put together an email, or record a podcast.

I know that's a hard ask for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, so just do your best. And if that doesn't work, that's fine. Do whatever works best for you and how you operate!

10. Launch & celebrate!

Rebranding your creative business, launching it and sharing everything with the world is a really huge thing.

Firstly, it’s a lot practically in terms of the work, time, money, and effort that you’ve put into the process, whether you’ve done it all yourself or hired others to help you.

But rebranding is also a lot mentally. You've probably done a lot of thinking, dreaming, strategising, trying to make things work, hoping that this will take your business to the next level, and working on your mindset things to let you confidently step into this new version of you and your business.

So make sure you treat yourself, celebrate and take a minute to appreciate and be grateful for yourself and all the work that you've done. Don't let the moment like slip you by before you move on to the next thing.

Launching the rebrand of your creative business doesn’t have to be complicated. All you have to do is decide what you want out of the launch, figure out what you want to talk about, plan where and when you're going to talk about it, and create and schedule some content to be able to do that. This guide has walked you through each of those steps, so now you’re ready to go out there and do it! Here’s to your new and improved brand!!

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