I worked with an organization that is just now completing its name change process. It was a scary proposition for managment and for good reason! A slew of internal documents must change and it’s easy to lose corporate brand value if you aren’t methodical in the process. But after the first few months of implementing the plan, we are now down to tying up just a few loose ends and thrilled with the results.
Besides the basics you already know, like changing letter head and business cards, here are a few lessons learned from mistakes that we made!
1. Build internal agreement. The CEO and the Board Chair had best be in agreement that the company name must change — or all your work will be for naught. Internal brain storming sessions guided by you or by a public relations firm can really help build excitement and rationale for the change.
2. Establish a start date. Ours was January 1st, and the date came from the CEO on down. It stopped the internal arguing and procrastinating.
3. Co-brand with your old and new names for at least 6 months to 1 year, maybe longer. Our press releases all describe our company as “New Corporate Name, formerly Old Corporate Name.”
4 Have a rationale. A reason. A story that makes sense. In our case, we hadn’t operated in one state for many, many years but our company name was based on the state where the organization was founded. Our old name caused strained business relationships with our clients in other states. The elevator speech we built was “since we’ve grown to a mulit-state organization, our name should reflect that expansion.”
5. Purchase new pop-up banners for trade shows. Cheap, easy to co-brand. We used both the old banners and the new banners at the same time and let the folks behind the table explain how our name had changed.
6. Announce an end date in mind after which you will no longer use old materials. It’s tempting to keep using them, but counterproductive.
7. Work out a new email template with the new email logo. Distribute a copy to everyone that they can copy and paste to their email distribution service.
Lagniappe: Redirect your website URLs to the Website with the new name.
Did I miss anything important?
