Time for a brand identity update? Here’s a handy checklist for a successful internal branding rollout plan which will win your team over to your new brand identity.

Customers and other external audiences tend to be the focus of brand identity updates, but any successful marketer knows there’s another important target audience to keep in mind (especially during the early stages of the rebranding process): your own employees. Ultimately, they are the ambassadors of your brand and will make a rebrand come alive for your customers.

Brand identity is more than new logos, signage, letterhead, business cards, company name, etc. It also has a powerful effect on how your employees approach their work, which is why it’s important to take an internal brand update seriously. When BP rebranded itself from an oil company to its new identity as an energy company, Harvard Business Review reports that a full 90 percent of employees believed the company was going in the right direction. Given that the best employees believe in their brand, a strong internal rebrand launch has the potential to become one of the defining moments of your company and regalvanize employee support for your brand.

Before the external launch, experienced managers will invest time and resources on an internal brand rollout and rally their employees around the new look or direction. Inspired? Here’s a handy checklist to help you successfully launch your brand identity update on the inside and get your team excited about the process:

Give your employees a hands-on role in the internal branding process

Directly involving your team in the internal branding process is super effective: it both switches your team onto the new brand and ensures that you have all hands on deck when implementing the new branding across your company.

Delegate responsibilities by appointing certain employees to act as brand ambassadors for the rest of the team. Depending on the size of your business, this could mean one or two employees, or a rebrand representative within every department. Whatever the number, equip them with the resources are to promote your new brand identity and brand strategy.

Your ‘internal rebrand ambassadors’ should field questions about the rebranding efforts and rebrand strategy, act as first-movers by adopting the new branding across internal documents, drum up excitement and help monitor a smooth transition across all company content and touchpoints, from logos to email signatures to templates.

Creating a new internal website dedicated to the internal launch of the rebrand rollout is also a great way to ensure that your team has access to all the resources (i.e., brand guidelines, brand launch timelines, style guides, brand implementation steps, etc.) they need to participate effectively in the rollout. Pack it with information about the brand identity update, FAQs and transitioning tips. It’s also a great way to collate different kinds of email templates informing customers and partners about the rebrand, which your employees can tap into and send on.

Update all your internal branding content

And that means all of it.

As soon as word of a rebrand gets out, stakeholders will expect to experience your new brand identity everywhere – across websites (i.e, SEO keywords, updated brand story, new name, etc.), social media platforms (including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, and others), packaging, advertising and products. Without a thorough transition, your team will be left feeling confused and disorganized, creating a fertile breeding ground for mistakes in areas where your old branding could crop up.

Ensuring that the new look is stamped across everything within sight, including all the general office supplies, tells both your team and the world at large that you are confident in your new brand, and encourages your employees and your customers to fully embrace it, too.

Make sure your new branding is fully rolled out across:

• Presentation decks
• Sales materials 
• Marketing materials 
• Onboarding materials
• Internal templates such as contracts and forms
• Invoices, receipts and applications
• Spreadsheets
• Word and Powerpoint templates
• Any other internal documents

Make sure your new branding is fully rolled out across:

• Envelopes
• Labels
• Folders
• Employee swag (i.e., t-shirts, mugs, etc.)
• Return address label or stamp

To make sure your new brand identity is fully implemented across all company content prior to the launch date, you can also appoint specific team members to watch out for any traces of the old branding on office paraphernalia, such as posters or mouse pads around the office. Meanwhile software can help you monitor your digital brand compliance across all your documents.

Harness software to keep your internal content on-brand

Ensuring that every single document in your archives is updated to your brand may sound like an insurmountable task, but fortunately there are digital solutions out there which can perform the job for you and save both time and manpower.

At Templafy, we’ve developed software which automates the whole process and seamlessly rolls out brand identity updates across all your internal content, from templates and documents to all your other brand assets. It does this by automatically updating any changes and ensuring that all users only have access to updated and compliant content.

By installing Templafy in tandem with your brand identity update, you can be certain staff are using the current design across your entire company, even across different offices. There’s also less room for employee mix-ups when digging up older, archived documents and templates. If users open a file with old branding, a notification immediately alerts them to the fact that it is visually out-of-date. That means staff can feel confident relying on past presentation decks and contract templates even after a rebrand.

By automating the update process and taking a lot of the headache out of template updates, your team will see your brand identity update as an exciting new experience rather than a mammoth workload.

Turn your internal rebrand launch into a ‘moment’

Ultimately, your rebrand represents a new direction for your company and your employees want to feel like they’re included on the ride.

The best way to build excitement and anticipation around the launch of your brand identity update is to host a big splash style event – whether it’s a staff breakfast, a lunch-and-learn event or a launch party.

Creating a ‘moment’ around your new brand identity will make it a memorable experience for your employees, help ensure internal-buy in, and motivate staff to take a more hands-on role in the rollout process.