In an industry where 42% of moving companies are upping their marketing game, investing in your branding can help you stay at the top of your market. But branding isn’t just about having a pretty logo.
It’s about creating a memorable identity that resonates with your audience and instantly sets you apart from the crowd.
Today, we're diving deep into all thing moving company branding or rebranding, including the role it can play in boosting your perceived value as a moving business and real examples from real movers knocking their branding out of the park. Let's go!
| 👉 Where will you get the biggest bang for your buck? Discover the top 12 moving company marketing strategies to boost your ROI. |
Branding vs. marketing
Branding and marketing are often confused, but they aren’t the same thing. Marketing encompasses all the activities and strategies used to promote and sell a product or service. This includes your Google and social media advertising, email campaigns, promotions, etc. It focuses on driving sales and increasing revenue through targeted communication and outreach.
Branding, on the other hand, is about defining the mission, values, and character your company embodies and using these elements to create a unique identity customers will remember. Think of it as more of a strategic play for winning the hearts and minds of customers. It includes everything that goes into the first impression you make on a prospect: your logo, slogan, color palette, and the overall tone and image of your business.
Think of it in terms of the human body. Marketing is the day-to-day actions we take to stay healthy, such as exercising and eating well, while branding is our personality, values, and appearance that make us unique and memorable to others.
The average lifespan of a brand's visual identify is typically 7-10 years.
6 practical ways to tackle your next rebrand
As with the human body, there are times when your moving company brand needs a little tuneup. But if it’s been a while since you’ve done any real work on your brand, thinking about where to start can feel overwhelming.
Whether this is your first time building a brand identity, or you’ve been in the game for a while and are gearing up for a major change, the following concepts, strategies, and examples will help get you inspired.
1. Revisit your brand identity
Jeff Bezos once famously said, “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” Before you start thinking about what color you want your new crew uniforms to be, get crystal clear on what it is that truly defines your business.
Start by asking a few key questions:
- What are my mission and values as a company?
- Have they changed since we first got started?
- Who is my current ideal customer?
- What aspects of the brand no longer resonate?
- What are my target audience’s biggest fears, pain points, and motivators?
- How do I want potential customers to feel when they see our brand?
Do you want to position your moving business as a white glove premium brand? A friendly family-owned business? The most trustworthy moving company in your market?
Branding is all about finding the sweet spot between what resonates with your ideal customer and what feels authentic and true for your business. If you’re stuck, taking the time to create (or recreate) a documented unique selling proposition (USP) for your brand could help get the wheels rolling.
At SmartMoving, we’re big fans of the work Jake Holz and the team at Local Muscle Movers are doing to streamline systems across multiple New England branches. Looking at their brand messaging, the company’s mission is clear and consistent: take the stress out of the moving process.
The reason it works (and a big part of the reason Jake and his team have been able to 6X profits in under 3 years), is because the team at Local Muscle Movers walks the walk. They revamped their sales, dispatch, and operation on the backend of the business to make sure that what customers see is what they actually get.
“Now we can be picky about booking our ideal jobs," says Jake.
2. Handle name changes with care
The name of your brand can make a large and lasting impression on your audience. If you’re planning a full rebrand, including name change, set aside some time to really rethink what your name says about your brand.
Here are some of the key elements to think about if you’re considering a name change:
- Current target audience
- Relevancy to target audience
- Easy to say and spell
- Distinct from the names of competitors
- Tells potential customers who you are and what you do
For example, My Guys Moving recently rebranded to MG Moving Services. As explained in their announcement article, this shift was necessary in order to reflect their current focus, which now includes specialty and commercial moves.
3. Level up your logo
Branding isn’t only about logos, but make no mistake: your logo can absolutely make or break your brand. When tackling this part of your rebrand, be intentional about your graphics and carefully consider exactly what it is that your logo conveys.
Here are some questions to ask:
- What idea or theme does the logo communicate?
- Is it distinguishable from other moving company logos?
- Does it make it easy to understand what we do?
- Is it eye-catching or is there too much going on?
And last but not least, are you sure it doesn’t accidentally look inappropriate? (This is a surprisingly big thing with logos.)
Next, take time to make sure your logo looks exactly the same everywhere you use it, which may include your:
- Google Business Profile
- Yelp
- website
- business listings
- flyers
- print ads
- social media platforms
- uniforms
- swag
- yard signs
- customer forms
- packing boxes and materials
When it comes to branding, consistency is key. Get someone on your team to do a complete audit and make sure you don’t have one logo in one place and a different one somewhere else.
4. Choose colors that make you stand out
Color has a very real impact on a consumer’s impression of your brand. Nowhere is this more apparent than with brands like Piece of Cake Moving & Storage, with its neon pink trucks all over New York City. With a pop of color this recognizable, their color choice arguably makes a bigger impression than any other element of their brand.
Other brands with killer colors include:
When choosing colors, consider color psychology, your brand values, and the competitors and other brands in your area to make sure your colors will stand out.
5. Hire a Photographer (and Videographer)
Content with quality images gets 94% more views. Not only that, Gen Z and Millennial consumers are twice as likely to make a purchase based on online imagery compared to Gen X or Baby Boomers.
And as the cherry on top, well-branded images and videos can also be a key component of your SEO strategy.
When selecting images for your brand, remember these key tips:
- Stay clear of generic stock photos to avoid blending in with competitors.
- Opt for diverse and dynamic images, preferably featuring real customers and employees.
- Ensure that photo sizes, aspect ratios, and resolutions are optimized for both SEO performance and visual appeal on your website.
Need inspiration? Moving industry leaders like Wirks Moving and Storage and Ferguson Moving and Storage are just a few of the many moving companies with high quality imagery.
6. Update Your Website
Your website needs to look great and be very easy to navigate. If you’ve made a series of one-off tweaks and updates over the years, there are probably areas of your site that aren’t as easy to navigate as you’d like them to be.
Run a complete audit of your website pages with the following guidelines in mind:
- Feature your logo and colors consistently across all pages
- Make sure the site is fast-loading and fully optimized for speed
- Use a URL that’s easy to remember
- Test quality of images and video across mobile devices
- Offer multiple ways to get a quote or get in touch
- Link your social accounts
- Add interactive tools like quote generators
- Feature customer reviews and testimonials
Good Greek Moving & Storage and Let’s Get Moving are just two examples of moving companies with easy-to-use websites that get straight to what’s important to the customer with the quote tool right smack on the home page.
Build a brand you can be proud of
Remember, branding goes beyond aesthetics. It's about crafting a unique, authentic identity that connects with your audience. And that identity can and will shift over time.
With the right set of questions and guidelines, you can reposition your moving company in a lot less time than you think and get right back to delivering the 5-star experience customers expect.
At SmartMoving, we’re here to help. Our purpose-built moving company software simplifies sales, dispatch, crew management, reviews and social media management, and more — all in one place.
For more helpful resources, sign up for our newsletter, or learn more about new online reputation management features helping movers optimize their brand to boost revenue.
