Even if you’ve been running a pest control business successfully for years, there may come a time when you start to feel like something is amiss. Maybe your sales have taken a dip lately or maybe you’re unable to retain as many customers as you did before…or maybe you just get the feeling that something isn’t right. Whatever the reason, one thing’s for sure, every company – be it pest control or otherwise – may need to reevaluate its brand image and consider rebranding at some point.
This is especially true if your company has been around for a while and is starting to feel the heat from competitors in the industry. However, be that as it may, many pest control companies fail to identify the right time to rebrand themselves. Therefore, in this article, we’ll discuss the 6 main signs you’ll need to watch out for which indicate that your company might need a rebranding.
1. You Have Expanded To A New Area Of The Pest Control Industry
There are many services that a pest control company can offer and companies in the industry don’t generally limit themselves to offering one service alone. For instance, a company that offers organic pest control services might also offer chemical pest control services. Nowadays, companies also offer users biological and electronic pest control services.
Depending on the type of area you’re operating in (indoors or outdoors) and the pests you’re dealing with, you likely offer users diverse services. If you’d like to expand your existing operations to include other services that you haven’t provided customers with before, you should consider rebranding. This may be an especially important consideration if you’ve had no previous experience with offering users the new service in question.
For example, if you’ve only ever dealt with chemical pest control before and would now like to offer electronic pest control services too, you will be catering to a significantly different consumer base, which necessitates rebranding.
2. Your Brand’s Identity No Longer Represents Your Ideals
This is often important for brands that change management or ownership and would like to alter the core ideals that define a business. The ideals that a company follows lay the very foundation on which it bases its day-to-day operations, which is why their significance cannot be overstated.
If you’re confused about how ideals could possibly influence the decision to rebrand, let me give you an example. Perhaps your primary focus before was on winning new business as quickly as possible and you allocated your resources accordingly. However, with time you’ve realized that customer retention is as (if not more) important as winning new business. In such a scenario, you’d want to alter your brand ideals to reflect your desire to foster healthy customer relationships by providing improved customer support services.
This would represent the need for rebranding your image (with the help of marketing) to let users know that your core ideals now include valuing relationships with customers to boost retention.
3. You Need To Dissociate Your Brand From Something Negative
There are few industries today that don’t suffer from some sort of controversy or negative publicity or another. In fact, many major companies also have their fair share of trouble with maintaining a great public image for years together. Therefore, if your pest control brand or the industry you operate in has come under fire recently for XYZ, rebranding may be a good idea.
Take for example the increased awareness regarding the pollution caused by chemical pest control products. These can cause significant damage to soil, water, and the living organisms in a given area. Pest control companies are now offering a viable alternative to chemical pest control: biological pest control. Since this pest control method doesn’t entail the use of chemicals and doesn’t damage the environment, it’s growing increasingly popular.
If you’re one of those pest control companies that are willing to offer users more environment-friendly services such as biological pest control, then rebranding could distance you from the negative publicity associated with damaging the environment.
4. Your Brand Looks Too Much Like Everyone Else’s
What better reason to rebrand your company than the realization that it looks like every other pest control company in the market? You should want your brand to stand out and appear unique in the marketing campaigns that you design for it, or prepare to have your competition eat you up.
You may also want to get the pest marketing and PPC experts on board to help you create a successful marketing campaign that effectively rebrands your company in the eyes of potential customers. In this case, you won’t be changing much about how your business itself operates, just your brand perception.
5. You Have Changed Your Business Model
There are many aspects to implementing a sound business model for a pest control company. More often than not, such companies have to weigh basic considerations such as cutting costs vs raising prices, winning new business vs retaining customers, and much more. If you’re deliberating whether or not you’d like to mix things up a bit and alter your business model, it would make perfect sense to rebrand your company in the process as well.
After all, if your new business model dictates that you take drastic steps like raising your prices rather than cutting costs to boost revenue, rebranding would surely be on the cards. Why? Simply because you’d likely be catering to a new consumer base, one that can afford your increased prices as opposed to old customers who were comfortable with your previous prices. You may also have to consider operating in areas that are more affluent than those you operated in before if you raised prices.
With different geographical areas come different social strata that have unique perceptions regarding brands. In such cases, it’s easy to see why rebranding may be necessary, even sensible. However, raising your prices is just one of the many examples of how a change in the business model could indicate the need to rebrand.
6. You Feel Like It
Lastly, it’s never a bad idea to take your feelings and instincts into account when deciding what will and won’t work for your business. After all, who understands your business and consumer base better than you do? Therefore, the decision to rebrand may be more instinctive than a strategic. Maybe you simply feel the need to tweak your brand image a bit and keep things fresh in an industry that deals with fierce competition. However, bear in mind that rebranding doesn’t always come cheap so it may be wise to back up your decision with a solid estimate of the benefits that you’ll receive from rebranding.
Well, that’s that — the main signs to watch out for when considering whether your pest control company needs a rebranding. Taking these factors into account should allow you to make an informed decision regarding the best time to rebrand your pest control company, thereby helping you boost sales in the long run.
