A brand audit is a method of analyzing your standing in the marketplace, examining the competition, and evaluating how successful your general business strategy is. Conducting an audit will give you an overall look at your company. This will help formulate a long-range plan for the company’s future. The information gathered will show you where your brand is positioned in the market, company performance, and where the brand needs improvement. This article will take a deeper look at brand audits to help you make an informed decision for your own business.
What Does a Brand Audit Look At?
A brand audit should examine three things – internal branding, external branding, and the experience your customers have with your company. You can employ outside professional marketing help or do most of the tasks yourself. It will depend on the experience level of your team members.
The first thing to look at is internal branding. This covers the brand’s mission, culture, and values. It’s a way to educate your staff on the brand so that their views match those of the company. You can create surveys for your employees when auditing internal branding. It will give you more of an insight into your team members and the business culture that’s been created with your brand.
Next is external branding. This is your brand’s narrative or story. What message are you sharing with your clients through the products and services you supply? Examples of external branding include the company logo, websites, public relations, email campaigns, your presence on social media, marketing material, and online and print advertising.
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The third and final thing to look at is the customer experience. This encompasses the sales process, client support, and the policies associated with your brand’s customer service. A brand audit for this can showcase the strengths and weaknesses of the sales method and customer service. How is your customer’s journey from beginning to end? What is working? What isn’t?
When Should You Perform a Brand Audit?
As part of your business strategy, a routine brand audit is advised for the success of the company. You don’t have to incessantly audit your brand, but if you can’t name all the company actions and initiatives over the past year, then it’s a good idea to perform a review. Experts do recommend a minimum yearly audit, but factors like the type of industry your brand is in, what size your business is, and company goals will affect the frequency of a brand audit.
A brand audit is an excellent idea if your company is trying new objectives, understanding client needs better, and keeping up with industry trends. You can see what your company has over your competitors, and advance and optimize marketing strategies. This also allows you to boost loyalty and unity with your stakeholders or board of directors.
Other factors that require the attention of a brand audit include:
- Mergers and expansions.
- Rebranding.
- Rolling out new services or products.
- Change in brand identity because of a campaign.
- Shift in customer behavior or unexpected feedback.
- Adapting to challenges like new regulations, competitors, and trends.
The Process
Performing a brand audit can be done internally or you can hire outside help. There are many talented marketing agencies with the tenacity and experience to help. This will be contingent on your own experience, tools, resources, and goals. The audit usually consists of outlining your objectives and studying information collected from interviews, surveys, reviews, analytics, market research, and social media. Revaluate your brand’s colors, name, logo, fonts, visuals, message, social media platforms, packaging, website, and advertising efforts. It’s a competitive market and it’s crucial to compare your brand to your competition. How do you rate compared to your industry nemesis?
To finish the process, look at your company’s positives and negatives with a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. By doing this, you can see what improvements are needed to accomplish your objectives and goals.
In Conclusion
The perks of a brand audit are invaluable and will aid you in evolving and growing your business. Collecting as much data as possible during an audit will help produce a dependable and clear brand. You will find out what your brand’s positioning is and how you are received in the market. This will also boost awareness and trust with clients and shareholders while enhancing your budget, resources, and ROI (return on investment).
You can unlock potential and create a solid business strategy when you carry out a brand audit. Make sure to create a report based on the findings and include recommendations for improvement. You should encourage the people you share the report with to give their feedback about the audit. Create a plan of action or business strategy based on the answers you got in the review. Assemble your employees in positions to help tackle the plan and be okay to adapt and adjust as you receive more data and feedback. Always evolve and grow. You can’t remain stagnant in such a competitive market, or your brand just won’t survive.