As a matter of fact, a key goal for any business is sustainable growth. While it’s important for a business to be constant when it comes to branding, there may come a time when you need to reinvent your brand for your business to keep growing and succeed. Whatever your reason may be, these tips will help to ensure that you don’t make costly missteps.

1. Do Your Homework. Do your research. Know your customers and what they want. Study the trends. Get your facts straight. Ask around. Learn from other people’s experiences. Make sure you are properly informed before deciding on a course of action. Consider ‘the case of one companys web domain name change from nutsonline.com to nuts.com. Shortening the name seemed like a good idea, but it alienated loyal customers and caused traffic to drop considerably.

2. Be Authentic. Know your strong points and stick to them. Don’t try to be something you’re not, because that will confuse consumers. If what you say or do does not correspond to how people perceive your brand, they will sense that you are not being sincere and therefore should no longer be trusted.

3. Make It Personal. Treat your company like a person who is unique and who has a specific goal. Reintroduce this person to customers by telling them his or her story, from the beginnings to future plans. Make people realize that although they have known this person before, there are new things about him that they will like and can relate to now.

4. Don’t Stop. The task of reinventing a brand is never done. Don’t be complacent when you achieve little victories. When things are going well, you should be more observant so that when problems arise, you can spot them immediately and apply remedies.

5. Trust Your Instincts. There will be times when you are going to have to rely on your gut feeling when making a decision. Sometimes, following your intuition may seem more logical than following logic. In this case, you just know something is right even if you can’t explain you came to that conclusion. Business is not always an exact science. Sure, you are dealing with statistics and reports all the time. But you are also dealing with a lot of intangibles, like consumers’ perceptions and beliefs.

Never forget that you are entering an unfamiliar territory when you try to reinvent your brand. What used to work before may no longer be effective. But so long as you have your route mapped out, you can get your company to where it needs to go and grow. Happy reinventing.