If you’ve recently asked yourself, “Should I refresh my brand?” this blog post is for you.
In your customers’ eyes, your brand reflects your school. It’s not just an isolated sign, logo, website, or advertisement. The quality of your branding represents the quality of your teachers, your facilities, and your curriculum.
Brand updates give you a chance to attract new families. However, drastic changes in branding sometimes isolate longtime customers. There’s a fine line between alienating your enrolled families and keeping things fresh for prospective ones.
How do you walk this line? How do you know your branding needs a refresh?
Should I Refresh My Brand? Signs to Watch Out For
Deciding when, how, and why to update your branding is based almost entirely on feeling — but not your feeling.
Do your target families feel like your branding is out of date? If so, it likely is. If your enrolled families like your branding, they’ll be more inclined to tell others where they send their children.
After all, your branding should be aspirational. What are you striving to achieve or become? Even if your childcare business isn’t everything you want it to be just yet, your branding should reflect that ideal.
Watch out for the following signs:
Your Brand Doesn’t Feel Current
How can you tell if your brand is “in”? We like to use the “Target Test.”
We use Target (the retail chain) as a litmus test for brand appeal. Here are a few Target brands we’ve seen in 2024:
- Good & Gather
- Cat & Jack
- Boots & Barkley
- Pillowfort
These brands are all part of Target, but Target sells them under sub-labels. That way, they can sell to a wider audience than they would if they just sold everything under “Target.” They sell kids’ products under the Cat & Jack brand, their pet products under the Boots & Barkley brand, and so on.
Many of these brands market to families with young children, just like your childcare center does. So, don’t be afraid to “borrow” from other brands’ extensive market research.
When you walk through the aisles at Target or any other popular store marketing to young families, do their products look like products your target families would buy? Have you kept up with the design trends on display? If not, it’s time for a brand refresh.
Your Brand Doesn’t Align With Your Community
The purpose of your branding isn’t just to draw customers in. Your branding also needs to align with the services you offer.
It’s not bad to be the highest-priced school in your area, for example, but your branding must reflect that. If your branding doesn’t position your school as prestigious, your prices might shock visitors.
Similarly, your brand must reflect what your community is looking for. If there are a lot of prestigious or luxury schools in your area, the market might feel saturated with similar brands. Access a new niche by putting a twist on your branding, such as by marketing your school as cutting-edge or modern rather than just prestigious.
Your Brand Doesn’t Represent Your Personality
When families look at your brand, they form an idea of what your facility is like. When you update your branding, ensure that idea aligns with your facility.
Problems arise when your branding doesn’t match your identity. Imagine you run a prestigious or luxury school, but your marketing is playful. Customers might think you’re snobby or stuffy when they tour your facility.
Similarly, if you run a playful school but your branding touts luxury, families might see you as cheap or lax.
We often find that schools need to update their branding because it never accurately reflected their facility in the first place. Alternatively, it may have worked at one time, but after years of changes, it no longer reflects who they are.
Your Brand Hasn’t Been Updated in 10+ Years
Update your brand if you haven’t done so in a while. We use 10 years as a benchmark.
Your branding may not need an entire overhaul after 10 years, but a bit of polishing is a good idea. At the very least, bring your branding into this decade.
How Changing Industry Trends Shift Customer Expectations
Changing industry trends alter customer expectations. That applies to every industry — not just childcare. Many trends die before they get off the ground, so don’t feel pressured to stay trendy.
Rather than bending to minute trends, look at how customer tastes change on a larger scale. What styles are in this decade? Take this into account when you update your branding.
How to Overhaul Your Branding
What steps can you implement today to help your branding work harder for your business?
Start by aiming for quality over trendiness. (Leave this part to a professional. You have much better ways to spend your time.)
Create branding that addresses all the pain points discussed above, but that’s also evergreen. As profitable as it would be for our marketing business to completely overhaul your brand every year or two, it’s overkill. A small biannual refresh is often all a good evergreen brand needs.
In fact, little tweaks go a long way toward helping you stay relevant. That’s where a professional can help most! We understand what’s happening in the larger childcare market and have an objective view of what your target audience wants.
When doing a brand refresh, we consider the following factors:
- Who you want to attract
- What makes you unique in your market
- How current or timeless you want to appear
- Your position on the price scale
You’re trying to attract your target audience to your business. They’re the ones who will see and consume your branding, so we cater heavily to their needs. We consider demographics and values, but we also account for how families will perceive your business.
For example, Disney is timeless. It’s a respectable, far-reaching organization. Cartoon Network is just as respectable, but it playfully markets to kids more than parents.
Which company does your business relate more to? Do you want to appear timeless, or would you rather market yourself as current and playful?
Next, what makes you unique in your market? We like to focus on what sets you apart from your competitors. It may matter to families with specific wishlists.
Finally, how pricey are you compared to nearby businesses? Your branding must reflect that, as we mentioned before.
Most importantly, trust the professional you hire. A pro will know how to attract your ideal clients. Trusting an outside source is tough, especially if you’re attached to certain aspects of your brand. It’s your job to be experts on parents and families, but it’s our job to be branding experts.
Should I Refresh My Brand? Final Thoughts
Want your brand to reflect the best version of your business? Call our expert marketing team today. Together, we’ll draw perfect-fit families to your school.