If you are in business long enough, there will come a time when you’ll need to rebuild your brand. Rebuilding a brand isn’t a process that many brand owners go through regularly. To help with that process, here are five steps to rebuilding your brand.

1) KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

In order to successfully rebrand, you need to have a good understanding of the audience you are trying to reach. This includes figuring out what they already think about your brand as well. Once you have an honest and clear overview of how your target audience views your brand, you can start thinking about the aspects of a brand that might appeal to them. Review all social media platforms to see how consumers are reacting to your messaging. Be sure to review more detailed data from social media — such as retweets and blog shares — to see which of your content is proving to be the most engaging. This is the information you can use to see what makes your audience tick.

Keep in mind that social media won’t give you the most accurate data though, so it’s important to take this research a bit deeper. It’s also helpful to use a brand analytics tool that can provide you with more precise data, which you can use as a reference to base any future branding decisions. These tools track brand awareness and will give you a clear idea if the audience you are targeting is even aware of your brand. Once you have this vital information, you will be able to build a reliable and accurate portrait of your audience. You can then use this to redefine your overall brand strategy.

2) MAKE KEY DECISIONS

You’ve now got valuable information regarding your audience and can begin making some important decisions that will define the future journey of your brand. Questions to ask are: Will you still be focused on your previous target audience? Have some other audiences emerged that you should also target? It’s at this stage that you should also define your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Make sure you know how it will stand up against your competitors so that you will still be able to retain your place in the market. In some cases, you might realize that it’s possible to just reconfigure your current brand rather than coming up with an entirely new one.

3) TELL YOUR BRAND STORY

Every brand needs a story, because stories are what appeals to us on an emotional level. Now that you have new, accurate data and have made key decisions, you will need a new story that connects everything together. The most important aspect of your story needs to focus on the value that you can bring to customers. Focusing on your brand’s unique value will help differentiate it from the competition. Think of your brand as having a personality archetype and use traits of that personality to reinforce your story. For example, Nike uses the Hero archetype to tell its brand story, while brands like Pampers and Dove soap use traits of the Caregiver archetype to covey a nurturing personality to appeal to consumers. Whatever personality you determine your brand to be, just make sure the tone of your story matches that personality. Create a new tagline and compile phrases and hashtags to keep the brand story consistent.

4) REINTRODUCE THE BRAND

Consider timing when deciding on relaunching the brand. Is there a specific time of year or holiday that your brand naturally coincides with? Once timing is established and you have a campaign in place, determine how you will reach your target audience. Is that audience on Facebook, Instagram or both? If so, you may want to hire influencers to help spread the word. If you have a food or beverage brand, think about in-store sampling. Other incentives include offering discounts and product giveaways through social media channels. Once you reintroduce yourself to the world, make sure that you are consistent with the new brand story being told.

5) REACT TO CONSUMER RESPONSE

Now it’s time to start proving to your audience that your brand has plenty of value for them. As long as you keep on monitoring and testing the brand, you will be able to see exactly how people — specifically your target audience — are responding. This is done with the help of brand analytics, brand tracking and brand alerts. There’s a possibility that you might find it necessary to make some changes to your new brand just after the launch.

Even though change can be difficult, it is sometimes necessary for a brand to survive. Think of rebuilding your brand’s image as a way to keep up with current trends and ensure you are meeting the needs of consumers in a compelling way.