I recently led a rebranding effort for the mid-size trade association where I was CEO, the National Waste and Recycling Association. The board of directors wanted to significantly elevate our programs, influence, and impact for the membership. We recognized that our association's brand should reflect and amplify the essence of our organization and project the impact of our success. We planned carefully and completed the arduous rebranding process with strong results.

Embarking on a rebranding effort can be exciting and rewarding, but it can also be a difficult and emotional process. Here are some key lessons—the six R's of rebranding—that I learned.

Rationale. I cannot overstate the value of a substantial and well-articulated rationale. The main reasons to rebrand are to deliver significantly greater results for your members, to elevate your association's ability to work with partners, and to deliver on your message. Before you start, completely evaluate the benefits and risks of a rebranding effort, and make sure key decision makers agree on the need for and purpose of the rebrand. You need their support and insights throughout this journey.

It is equally important to ensure that you have a strong and accurate sense of the organization's history, as well as a reliable measure of the brand's current value, which will be essential to consider as you develop a plan. How your stakeholders view the current brand will affect how you win buy-in and support for the rebrand. Some stakeholders may have doubts along the way, so keep them engaged productively and continue to remind them of the rationale and plan.

The main reasons to rebrand are to deliver significantly greater results for your members, to elevate your association's ability to work with partners, and to deliver on your message.

Resources. Ensure that you have the resources necessary—funding, staff, and time for analysis and implementation—to complete a successful rebrand. Expect to devote at least a year or two to conducting research, developing brand options, reaching consensus, and implementing the new brand. Bring in experts whom you and the stakeholders trust. Given the complexities of a rebranding effort, it is important to engage partners with strong expertise, such as a public relations or communications firm, to help you navigate through difficult barriers and concerns.

Research. Inform the rebranding effort with extensive research that taps the perspective of your various stakeholders, including the board of trustees, representatives of major constituent groups, staff, state and federal lawmakers, and strategic partners. Evaluate the risks and benefits of a rebrand to determine whether it will produce a sufficient return on investment. When conducting research, we polled stakeholders about the association, its benefits and challenges, the equity of its original name, questions about an appropriate new name, and any concerns with a name change. We then held focus groups to gather more detailed feedback.

Responsibility. Strong leadership is needed for a successful and effective rebrand. Establish upfront who makes final decisions, and keep those leaders intimately involved in the process. Ensure that your stakeholders understand the process and are aware of who is leading the project.

Robust planning. Have a clear and well-articulated implementation plan. It should cover all aspects of rebranding, including a review of the organizational structure to make sure it is equipped to effectively carry on the new mantle. The review should consider all planned actions and determine if additional support or resources are needed to complete the plan. In addition, implementation should include programs to communicate, educate, and leverage the new brand. Anticipate the challenges and pushback, and be flexible enough to allow for adjustments as the research and feedback dictate.

When appropriate, engage staff and member committees in the rollout and implementation of the new brand. Staff have an essential role to play in introducing the new brand, including building support among skeptics. In my experience, after about a year, the new name of our organization was top-of-mind and the old one was fading from memory.

Realizing the impact. Measure and communicate the impact of the rebrand. Ensure that your measures demonstrate that the rebrand addresses the original rationale for the project, and communicate these findings broadly. One of the reasons my association engaged in a rebrand was to establish ourselves as the premier voice of the industry, and one of our measures of success was demonstrating that major news outlets had begun to contact us for subject matter expertise on key issues. Not only could we show that the number of news requests increased every week, but we could also boast a 70 percent "share of voice," or the percentage of all online and media content and conversations about our organization compared to other industry voices.

A rebranding process is arduous but should deliver a significant impact for your organization. When all is said and done, step back and evaluate the process, savor the results, and share what can be learned from it.