There can be significant practice-wide benefits of rebranding your accountancy practice. Most practices carry out a rebranding exercise when one or more of the following scenarios takes place:
- A partner retires or leaves the firm.
- The practice moves office.
- The practice merges with or acquires, another practice.
- They receive negative feedback from staff, clients or business associates about their image.
However, there’s nothing to stop you from reviewing your current branding at any time.
The benefits of rebranding your accountancy practice
A strategy of constantly updating your logo and branding every few years would be unnecessary and impractical. However, there are several benefits of rebranding your practice, whether relating to the points mentioned above or simply because now is a good time to do so. These benefits include:
- Refreshing and updating your logo so it looks modern and will stand out to your current target audience.
- Making sure your branding and messaging reflect the current values and culture of the practice.
- Being able to effectively reproduce your logo across different mediums (website, social media, adverts, stationery etc) without the shape, colour or design being distorted or lower quality than you would want it to be.
- Updating the corporate font you use on emails, letters, stationery etc so that it reflects your current branding.
- Helping your practice to stand out and differentiate itself from your competitors.
- Demonstrating to all your stakeholders (employees, future employees, clients and prospective clients, suppliers and business associates) that your firm is moving with the times and ahead of the game.
By updating your branding so that it achieves the benefits outlined above, you are more likely to attract new enquiries and grow your fees.
Ultimately your branding should reflect the firm you are today and the values you uphold. It should be consistent across all items which are printed or electronic/digital.
How to review your branding
The best way to identify if your practice would benefit from a rebrand is to carry out the following exercises:
Review your own branding
Gather as many branded items as you can from around your firm, especially if you have more than one office. Layout all of these items on a table and study them.
- Is there consistency in terms of image and messaging?
- Are there variations in the colours used?
- Are different messages being used by different departments or offices?
- And ultimately ask yourself what message your branding conveys about the firm.
If you’re not sure what message your branding is communicating, ask your staff and clients. Their feedback will help you identify whether your current logo and messaging are an accurate reflection of the firm you are. If not, you may need to consider revamping your branding or perhaps work harder at being the firm your branding says you are!
Review your competitors
- Carry out the same exercise as identified above, but this time review the branding of several of your competitors.
- How does your logo compare to theirs?
- Do you stand out?
- How do they differentiate themselves in their branding and messaging?
Rebranding does not need to be a costly exercise, and it pays to get comparison quotes from different designers, but it must be consistent and relevant to your accountancy practice’s strategy and messaging. If you’d like help with revamping your branding and messaging please get in touch here.
