About 7% of a company’s marketing budget is for rebranding. It’s estimated that three out of four S&P 10 companies rebrand within the first seven years of business. Is that a timeline you should follow when it comes to completely switching your brand’s identity? Is it better just to switch marketing plans and save time and money? If your marketing plan is doing what you want, is it even worth switching to something else?

 Review Your Current Marketing Plan as Often as Fits Your Business

 The general goal is to review your marketing plan each year. Set a day, such as the end of the third quarter, to go over how well your marketing plan has worked for your company. Once a year may not be enough. You may need to review your marketing plan each quarter, after a big campaign, or twice a year. It depends on how much your business fluctuates from one month to the next.

 For example, if you own a chain of restaurants, your busy times are around holidays, graduations, and the peak wedding season. You may want to change your marketing plan for each of those milestones. That would require a review of your marketing plan several times a year.

 If your company is an HVAC company, you’re going to be helping with heating systems in the winter and air conditioning systems in the summer, twice-a-year reviews may be all you need. Meanwhile, a dental office will do well with yearly reviews as their services don’t tend to fluctuate with the seasons. Look at how much your business fluctuates to see how often you’d need to adjust marketing campaigns.

 Changing Times Call For New Websites

 If it’s been years or even decades since you’ve reviewed your company’s website, it’s time to consider it. Times have changed a lot, and it’s your responsibility to protect your consumer’s personal information. You should have your website set up using HTTPS protocol, yet statistics show that 5% of websites on Google are still using HTTP. If you’re one of them, it’s time to switch.

 You also should look to see if you’re using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or TSL (Transport Layer Security) protocols. TLS is optimal at this point. Consider this as your marketing team updates your website.

 Avoid the visual pitfalls that disappoint consumers. Are you still using stock photos? Stop. If someone is looking at your kitchen site and sees the same photo of a dinner setting that they’ve seen on seven other sites, they’re not going to believe you’re really an expert when you can’t even create and photograph your own work.

 No one is perfect, but you should have the copy on your website free of errors. Spellcheck and grammar software found online make it easy to scan and catch spelling errors. Grammar errors like “they’re/their/there” or “its/it’s” will stand out to readers. Do not stuff your content with keywords. It’s not the best way to market your service or product, and it doesn’t fool Google’s algorithms like it used to.

 Finally, your UX design needs to be tested again and again to ensure your website is user-friendly and doesn’t lead to pain points. It shouldn’t overload consumers with choices. It shouldn’t be hard to navigate. Make sure every page is clear, has the buttons needed to complete actions, and doesn’t lead to dead-ends or disappointments. What disappoints consumers? Here’s a short list.

• The colors are hard to see. (Remember that there are people with visual impairments out there).
• Your videos lack closed-captioning for the hearing impaired.
• Pages or images take too long to load.
• Being able to add an item to a cart only to get an out-of-stock error when submitting the order.
• Excessive pop-ups each time an item is added to a cart or a selection is made.
• Auto-playing videos and multimedia content.
• The “contact us” form is broken.
• You never changed all occurrences of “Lorem Ipsum.”

Not every consumer has a computer, and some don’t spend much time on their computer outside of work or school. Many spend the majority of their time on smartphones. There are 4.95 billion internet users, but there are 5.31 billion mobile phone users. Make sure your website has a responsive design, and test it on a variety of devices to ensure it appears as well on an iPhone as it does on a Google Pixel.

How do you test the responsive design? There are tools like BrowserStack that allow you to quickly do this. If you don’t want to purchase a subscription, you can access Google’s developer tool by clicking Ctrl+Shift+I from your website. From there, click on the image of the phone and tablet next to “Elements” and use the drop-down menu to see what your site looks like on different devices.

Merging Companies Should Redo the Marketing Plan

What if you own a company that’s merging with another? For example, you’ve merged your printing company with a bulk mailing firm. You’re now able to offer brochures, flyers, and other promotional materials and ship them at the same time. This is handy to a company that doesn’t want to have to figure out bulk mailings on their own, so it’s important to remarket your business so that people know all of the new services you offer.

When you merge two or more companies, consider a complete rebranding too. You want a new website, app, and logo that matches your new company. A rebranding takes time, so it’s important to get started as quickly as you can.

As you look at your restructuring, make sure you’ve considered revising the budget you set aside for marketing. A rebranding has to fit your budget. If you restructured due to financial issues, you may not have the same amount available to put towards marketing. If you were able to purchase another company because you’re doing well, you’ll have more money to put towards marketing.

The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends investing about 7 or 8% of your gross revenue in your advertising and marketing campaigns. But, surveys that asked company officials how much they spend found that most companies spend an average of 12%. B2B companies tend to spend a little less than B2C companies.

Embrace Social Media

Has your marketing plan delved into social media marketing? You’re overdue. Around the world, there are 4.62 billion people using social media. If you are not tapping into social media marketing, you’re missing out. Establish accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok in order to capture the majority of these users.

Not every marketing team has the time or skill to build a website, while also building a strong, effective social media marketing campaign. Your marketing department may be skilled at traditional marketing plans, but lack experience with digital marketing. Don’t give up on your goals to reach a broader audience with a brilliant marketing plan.

Factory 360 embraces all aspects of marketing. Let your marketing department focus on their strengths, and hire our team of experts to help with the rest. Our team is skilled in social media marketing, experiential marketing, influencer marketing, UX/UI, and many other areas of marketing that can help you grow your audience. Contact us today to learn more.