Rebranding your photography business is such an exciting time, and It can be tempting to jump all-in without much consideration. While a strategic brand can help you grow your business and help solve a lot of issues you may be facing. An unstrategic brand made with the wrong design choices can leave your audience lost and confused. We suggest always taking a step back and asking these essential questions before proceeding with a branding project. We include many questions like this in our questionnaires to clients to get them thinking more deeply about their business before working with us so we can help guide them through more thoughtful design choices.

Why are you rebranding Rebranding your photography business?

The first question to ask yourself before Rebranding your photography business is, why are you doing it in the first place? For example, you might be trying to reposition your brand or differentiate yourself from your competitors. Or are you wanting to modernise your brand to appeal to a younger or different demographic? Understanding the reasons behind your rebranding will help you make more informed decisions and ensure you’re moving in the right direction. And letting your designer know the answers to these questions will help them make better strategic decisions. Helping to ensure it is as effective as possible.

What problems are you having in your business right now?

There are many problems that rebranding your photography business can help solve within your business, and acknowledging these is key to see if branding can help you bridge the gap between your situation and your solution. For example, maybe some of those problems sound like you’re not currently attracting your dream audience, you are getting inquiries that are questioning your pricing, or people are confused about your services. These are all problems your positioning in brand strategy can help with. Ensuring your designer knows these will help you work together to solve those issues. Although a designer can’t solve every problem, they may be able to give you pointers in the future on what you should be doing to tackle those problems further.

What is your budget?

Although investing in your branding can be pricey, it is an investment. Therefore it’s essential to consider the branding results before determining your budget. Instead of considering what you can afford right now; switching your mindset to ‘What am I willing to pay, and when will I be ready to pay it.’ This can help you get the most out of your rebrand. Branding is an essential step for your business and shouldn’t be budgeted to your current financial situation. It should be seen as more of an investment that you have to determine when you are ready for.

As we established earlier, branding that isn’t strategic is just as harmful as no branding at all, so making sure you are investing in the right person for you is KEY. Instead of comparing designers on pricing, does the designer have a style you like? What is their process? Have a chat with them. Do you connect with them? Treating branding as finding the right person for the job rather than saving as much as possible will help you make the best investment for your business.

When considering branding value, consider the result. Will you raise your prices, or will people take you seriously? Will you be more aligned with projects that light your soul on fire? These results can transform your business, so you should consider what you can afford to pay for those changes.

Have you done your research?

Before rebranding, you should understand your target audience, competitors, and industry trends. Then, you can conduct market research and analyse your competitors. You can gather customer feedback to better understand the market and the direction you should take with your rebranding campaign. Although you might not be an expert in brand strategy, giving your designer a rough outline of some of these ideas shows your designer that you understand more of your business’s strategic elements. Of course, your designer should be an expert in brand strategy. They should be able to take more extensive research like this off your plate, so you don’t have to. However, understanding basic knowledge of these things will help you to communicate with your designer. You’ll both be able to communicate about how your brand will be effective.

How will you measure the success of Rebranding your photography business?

Finally, before Rebranding your photography business, you should ask yourself how you will measure success. What metrics will you use to determine whether your rebranding campaign was successful? For example, will you look at your website traffic, social media engagement, or revenue growth? On the other hand, maybe it’s something more internal such as having more confidence in your brand or having your ideal client say, ‘Wow, this brand is so me’. A clear understanding of how you will measure success will help you stay focused. Which will ensure that you’re moving in the right direction. It will also help your designer know what key things need to be focused on to make sure the re-brand is successful for you.

With the right strategy and approach, re-branding can help you grow even further. Asking yourself these questions before working with someone on your brand can help you make more informed choices. They can also help your designer understand more about you and your business. Which will help them set you up for success. Even though we work with clients on more intensive VIP Days, it’s important to know we do all this work for a whole week before that VIP day. Remember that re-branding is a process and takes time and careful strategic choices to get it right. If you’re considering rebranding, we hope this blog post is helpful for you in taking that next step.