If you want to increase brand recognition, continually build your brand persona, and boost customer engagement with your brand, it’s often necessary to make updates or rebrand your app. Periodic updates and rebrands can help ensure your app is at its best and that your brand develops into an industry leader.
While updates and rebrands are required, it’s important to know how to successfully roll them out and maintain both user engagement and satisfaction. In this guide, we’ll cover how to promote your app update or rebrand before officially launching it.
Focus on Internal Communication Before Promoting
Before you can begin promoting a rebrand or update, you need to communicate the change internally among your employees. Everyone needs to be on the same page regarding the change, with a thorough understanding of the reasons behind the change and the marketing materials used to promote it.
By ensuring that all of your staff know what the rebrand will entail, your employees will understand how to communicate it externally. You can make sure everyone’s onboard by taking some time to communicate with them about the rebrand. For instance, you could employ senior business leaders to promote a rebrand to employees via blog posts, statements, or company meetings. If you can show that leaders are in support of the rebrand or update, this will encourage more employees to agree to and invest in the change.
If your business is smaller, consider getting everyone together for a meeting to announce the new change and explain the various details of it. You can then detail each person’s role in the promotion and launch of this change. You can also answer any questions that employees might have.
Once everyone is willing to go through with the change and they understand the ins and outs of it, you can start to promote it externally.
In the days leading up to the launch of your rebrand or update, indicate what people can expect by teasing the change to customers and followers. You could do so by making social media announcements or sending emails to people on your contact list. However, avoid saying too much beyond letting your audience know that a big change is approaching. You can include exciting videos or images that hint at what the specific change might be, which could include a preview screenshot of your app or behind-the-scenes footage of your team.
Show Appreciation to Loyal Users
Ahead of the launch, you can also increase engagement and your user base by rewarding loyal users in different ways. If you can show that you value the users who have stuck with you, they’ll be more inclined to speak about your brand in a positive light to the people they know, along with social media followers. You’ll effectively create brand ambassadors who may be able to help promote your update, or simply encourage more people to use your app as the update approaches.
For instance, you could offer discounts or other referral rewards to users if they get friends and family to sign up and use your app. Additionally, you could give your loyal audience an early update and sneak peek that leads them to share the news with others. This kind of engagement with your audience will also, in turn, keep them engaged with your app.
Promote Your Update or Rebrand on All Platforms
When promoting any kind of change, make sure to reach people on every possible platform. You can start by writing a blog about the change, hinting at what’s to come. You can then share this blog post on social media platforms, along with isolated social media posts that generally announce the update.
Keep in mind that video marketing is now more important than ever, and this applies to rebrand and update promotion. Create exciting teaser videos or more extensive previews that you can also share on social media, along with YouTube followers. Other types of content you can create may include infographics, Instagram Stories, and much more.
For example, if your app has already undergone multiple rebrands, you could develop an infographic that showcases your brand’s evolution since inception, starting with your first logo and showing a timeline as the years progressed. Mastercard did this when they made a change in 2019, accompanying it with a more in-depth page about their brand history and each logo.
For existing users, you can also use strategic push notifications and SMS text messages that bring the upcoming change to their attention. They may then choose to engage with your app immediately after receiving and viewing those notifications.
The more you can communicate your update or rebrand with existing and prospective users, the more you’ll excite them and increase both user acquisition and retention.
Communicate Your Rebrand to Media Outlets
Your rebrand also needs good PR to succeed. A full-scale rebrand is often newsworthy, making it ideal to reach out to commentators and journalists who can help publicize it. Make sure you develop and publish press releases that announce and detail your rebrand. You should also ensure you have comments to share with the public to complement them.
If the press wants to conduct interviews with your team, try to determine who should represent your app in these interviews. The person responsible for taking on this role may include marketing leaders, people on your creative teams, or the founder of the brand.
The key is not to be shy about promoting your brand to the general public and to be prepared to address any concerns.
Tell the Story Behind Your Rebrand
Every rebrand has a rich story behind it that’s worth telling. Think about the specific reasons why you chose to start rebranding and discuss this. You can also talk about your company’s approach to the rebrand, along with what you aim to achieve in the future with this change.
In blog posts, interviews, and other formats, you can go into detail about how your creative team designed the logo or developed a new company name. What struggles did you and your teams face in your rebranding efforts? All of these stories craft a collective narrative around your rebrand that engages audiences and makes your brand appear like a group of innovative people, not merely an entity.
The more people know your story, the more they’ll understand the decisions you made, and the more they’ll come to know and trust you over competitors.
Answer People’s Questions About the Change
A rebrand or large update will come with many questions that people want answers to before the launch. This is why you must make sure you have plenty of detailed answers to provide. This will help maintain trust among your audience and help them prepare for the change in advance, allowing for a smooth transition when the change finally arrives.
To brace yourself for any questions that people might have, think of things from your customers’ point of view. Consider what kinds of questions they would ask and create a list of them. You can then brief your customer service reps and make sure they’re prepared to answer questions that come their way.
To supplement customer service efforts, you can also create an FAQ page or make additions to an existing one that would answer questions about your rebrand or update. You can even answer questions in the form of an engaging video that goes over some FAQs, which you can then link to through social media and other platforms.
Always Keep the Customer in Mind
Before, during, and after the promotion of your app update or rebrand, you should always keep users and customers in mind.
To maximize satisfaction with any rebrand, for instance, make the transition smooth and efficient, incorporating a singular change rather than multiple stages. This will help maintain your brand persona and hold your identity in place.
It’s also crucial to be consistently transparent throughout the process, giving plenty of information and answering questions that audiences are likely to have. In maintaining transparency and increasing trust, explain exactly why the rebrand is happening and how it will bring value to your customers.
Bear in mind that different segments of your audience will have different reactions to the change once implemented. This is why you need to enable them to provide feedback. If they like or don’t like something, you can take note of these critiques to inform future changes. Inviting feedback also makes your audience feel as though you truly value them and their input.
Sufficiently Prepare Your Updates and Rebrands With the Right Tools
By taking all of these elements into consideration, you can successfully promote and release an app update or rebrand. You’ll be able to appeal to existing users while acquiring new ones and make sure your audience is consistently happy.
For some help with promoting your change, attracting new users, and increasing retention, turn to App Samurai. This mobile growth platform can help you get the best possible results from your rebranding and updating efforts. Using this tool, you’ll be able to develop an effective strategy that connects with the right people at the right time.