Mailchimp\u2019s story, on the surface, seems sort of miraculous.<\/p>\n
Launched back in 2001, Mailchimp has grown into an email marketing behemoth. In 2016, it added nearly four million new users\u200a\u2014\u200aincreasing its total user base from\u00a012 million to 16 million<\/a>. In 2017, it posted more than\u00a0$525 million in revenue<\/a>, an especially remarkable number when you consider that founders Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius reached it without ever raising venture capital.<\/p>\n But Kurzius and Chestnut\u2019s success doesn\u2019t stem from divine intervention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rather, it\u2019s a product of strong leadership and innovative thinking, exemplified by Mailchimp\u2019s decision back in 2017 to expand its product offerings\u200a\u2014\u200aincluding stripped-down web pages and a platform that puts a small-business spin on traditional\u00a0enterprise-sales software systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not all they did. They also accompanied this expansion with a\u00a0rebranding overhaul<\/a>, which reimagined Mailchimp\u2019s logo and name to better accommodate its size and utility. And it\u2019s\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0decision which, at least on the marketing side, was truly brilliant.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what marketers should strive to take away from it.<\/p>\n Mailchimp was known originally as purely a small business email marketing platform. But they\u2019ve now grown into something more wide-reaching than that\u200a\u2014\u200asomething with greater potential reach. Because of that, they no longer want to be known as strictly a small business email marketing platform, but rather a more dynamic marketing solution with benefits for both small businesses\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0enterprise customers alike.<\/p>\n The question Chestnut and Kurzius had to answer in considering how to make that transition, then, was: how do we articulate and amplify the fact that they we\u2019re expanding in this way?<\/p>\n The answer? Rebranding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As we\u2019ve seen, Mailchimp\u2019s rebranding efforts doubled as a way to communicate their elevated services in a way that drew attention. It\u2019s easier to go from consumer to enterprise than the other way around\u200a\u2014\u200aas a large consumer business, you have millions of customers already familiar with your brand, but as an enterprise company, you might only have 30 or so customers, and therefore less brand recognition\u200a\u2014\u200abut still, you need to make it known to the enterprise world that you\u2019re serious about what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n Judging by the ad spots Mailchimp landed in places like\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200aand the partnerships they solidified with companies\u00a0like Facebook<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s safe to say they succeeded.<\/p>\n For marketers, know that rebranding is more than a means of communicating something new. It\u2019s also about getting attention.<\/p>\n1) Rebranding is a key mechanism you can employ in taking your company to that \u201cnext level\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200alike from consumer to enterprise.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2) Whenever you hit your Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), it\u2019s time to set a new\u00a0one.<\/strong><\/h3>\n