How I successfully rebranded my business in less than a week
On December 1st, I launched my second Shopify store. My product? An all-natural, vegan turmeric face scrub. I had high hopes for this one. My boyfriend and I had spent all our free time thinking, planning, and experimenting and were super happy with the results. We had succeeded in generating some pre-launch buzz and we couldn’t believe it — people were actually buying our product! They were posting selfies on Instagram! They were telling us how much they loved our face scrub. Our follower base was growing larger every day. Things were looking gooood. But then — after two months of hard work — something arrived in our mailbox.
Bam. It was a cease and desist letter. Our hearts sank. Another company was using a similar name to ours — and they had already trademarked, meaning we had to stop using all references to our name. This meant that everything from our website domain, social media handles, descriptive copy, photos — and even our favourite reposts of our awesome customers using our product — had to go. Needless to say, we were freaking out. Would we lose the momentum we worked so hard for? Would people lose trust in our product?
Later that evening, our freakout began to shift into inspired action. There were some things we had been struggling with in regards to our current brand. We had planned to make a change down the line — but kept putting it off. Now we had a reason to act quickly. Why not use this opportunity to make our brand stronger than ever?
I’m going to walk you through the steps we took to rebrand and relaunch our product — in less than a week.
Sounds crazy right? I’ll admit, it was pretty stressful at times, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because right now, our brand is stronger than ever. Let me show you how.
Challenging assumptions
First, we discussed where our brand fell short. Up until this point we had fallen into a comfortable rhythm — but what really makes our product stand out above the rest? What makes us different? Is our product’s value clear? And most importantly: are we trustworthy?
Asking ourselves these things led to a few more questions. These new questions narrowed our focus and gave us some great starting points to build from:
- Our brand’s voice was bland. How could we make our brand feel more fun, bold, and a little bit badass?
- Could our new name help embody this new voice? Is there anything else we could do?
- Turmeric has been used in South-Asian weddings for centuries. Is there an opportunity to make this history an integral part of our brand?
Developing a new identity
In order to have a quick turnaround, we felt it was important to maintain our familiar design, which meant keeping our existing packaging and brand colours. Because we decided to focus on voice as the key player in our new identity, we started brainstorming names that could fit this vision.
So there it was: we were now YLLO. We loved that it was easy to associate our name to our product, since turmeric is well-known for its bold yellow colour. Also, our scrub sits on your face for 20 mins — and during that time, you’re bright yellow. Yes, you look a bit silly and it’s hilarious. YLLO has some spunk to it.
Our next task was combing through our existing copy to get rid of all references to our previous name. Annoying? Totally. But we looked at it as a great opportunity to add a bit more personality to our brand’s voice. We reworked all of our copy to have a fun yet direct tone.
Elevating our brand
Sweet. We had figured out our new name, adjusted our copy, and made a brand spankin’ new logo. But we didn’t stop there. We didn’t really need to change anything else, but this was a great opportunity to elevate our brand to make sure that our mini “relaunch” was a success. Up until this point, we were using royalty-free photos from Unsplash on our website, which didn’t really scream legitimate. When we first launched our product, we forced brand-specific photography to the back of our mind (since typically, photoshoot = $$$).
We didn’t really need to change anything else, but this was a great opportunity to elevate our brand to make sure that our mini “relaunch” was a success.
What we didn’t realize is that you can have the photoshoot you want without completely destroying your budget. A good place to start is with people you know. Luckily, one of our acquaintances had connections in the local modelling scene. She jumped at the chance to help out a new start-up and quickly hooked us up with some models (who were willing to work for some free product and cross-promotion) and put us in touch with an affordable photographer. Just a few photos completely transformed our online presence and finally made YLLO feel like a real thing.
Another great thing about running a photoshoot is that it really makes you think about your brand as a whole. What message are you trying to get across? How should people feel when using your product? How do you want your brand to be perceived?
In addition to unique content, we also wanted our brand to have a higher purpose — something that people could connect with and feel good about when buying a pack of scrub. We knew that turmeric has been used for centuries in South Asian wedding rituals for glowing skin. Sadly, we also knew that child marriage is a huge ongoing problem in that part of the world. This was a cause we could feel proud to stand behind and the association to our product was clear. Because of this, we decided to make the commitment to donate 10% of sales towards charities supported by girlsnotbrides.org.
Spreading the word
Now that we had all our changes in place, it was time to tell people about it. First up: our Instagram following. Since we had already built a solid and organic following, we didn’t want our rebrand to come as a shock to those who had already bought from us. After uploading a post educating everyone about our recent changes (and why we had to make them), we sent out an email campaign to all our customers with a more detailed explanation. Since they had already ordered packages with our old branding, we offered them a discount for their next purchase with us. Instead of feeling blindsided, we wanted our customers to feel valued and part of the process.
In addition to communicating with the people who already knew about us, we also did a huge marketing push to those that didn’t. We ran Facebook ads showcasing our new brand. We added Buyable Pins on Pinterest. We reached out to a ton of Instagram influencers and followed a bunch of high-profile magazines. Since we had to take down all of our previous photos that showcased our old packaging, we sent out a bunch of free product to rebuild and strengthen our social proof.
Instead of feeling blindsided, we wanted our customers to feel valued and part of the process.
The aftermath
A few days after we launched our new look, we were able to connect with Allure Magazine (and most recently, Brit+Co). They told us how much they loved what we were doing and asked if they could try some of our scrub — so we sent them some. Shortly after, our sales skyrocketed. We ended up selling out in a matter of days and had to take a bunch of backorders. I’d like to think that our ability to create these connections wasn’t a coincidence. With the recent changes, our brand finally came together — and people were starting to take notice.
So what did we learn?
- Do your homework. A legit copyright and trademark search is a must. We were naive by assuming that because we attached ‘turmeric scrub’ after our name, we were in the clear. Not so much — especially if someone else has an extensive trademark. If you’re in Canada like us, you can find more details at trademarkcanada.org.
- Change is a good thing. With any business, you should always be thinking of ways to get better. It’s important not to get too comfortable with your brand since there is always room for improvement.
- Always look at the bright side. We could have easily given up after receiving that letter — when in reality, it shook us into action. We could have done a quick and dirty name change, but creating a great experience and fresh new look that made sense was a huge priority for us. If something negative is thrown at you, try and spin it into a positive.
At the end of the day, I’m really happy we received that email. It forced us to ask some hard questions — and we’re stronger because of it. Whether you’re thinking of starting your own business or giving your existing business a bit of a makeover, I hope this post gave you a little push in the right direction.
Gone through something similar? I’d love to hear your thoughts / comments! Oh, and check out out ylloscrub.com— and maybe buy some face scrub while you’re at it. :)
