Brand Audit Overview

Ask yourself the following questions:

·      Is your current brand maintaining the reputation you want to have?

·      Does it support a price premium?

·      Are you competitive?

·      Does your visual identity reflect your level of professionalism, quality, and expertise?

·      Do communications resonate with the type of customers you want?

The goal is to stay relevant by obtaining top-of-mind recall with the communities you serve. It is also to avoid brand drift and disconnection with your audiences. 

1. Start with Your Brand DNA components such as:

Purpose: why you exist

·      Vision: what you want your business to become

·      Promise: what your customers can expect to receive from you

·      Values: your philosophies, what you stand for

·      Position: how your business is perceived in its industry and among competitors

·      Persona: attitudes and behaviors

·      Voice and Tone: how your business expresses itself (casual, authoritative, etc.)

·      Core Message: the central theme of your brand communication

·      Visual Style: elements of visual identity such as logos, colors, and imagery

·      Expression: how and where your business communicates with its audience

Notice these describe your business and not products, services, or the target market. Your DNA must be clear as a bell because it’s the standard by which you’ll assess everything else.

2. Evaluate Your Goals

All goals—not just revenue—are relevant to your brand’s success. They work together to help you build the business you wanted to create when you started.

For example, one goal may be to donate part of revenue to a good cause. Or maybe you want to hire new employees by year-end. Expansion is another common goal.

Whatever they are, assess your goals to determine if they still make sense. Is it time to adjust, refocus, or drop one altogether?

3. Assess Your Target Audience

Your target audience has a lot of impact on how successful you are. No matter how great your product or service is, it will be tough to sell if your market doesn’t appreciate it.

A brand audit will help you assess the quality of your target audience for the immediate and distant future.

4. Evaluate the Customer Journey

After you’ve assessed the target audience, it’s time to explore the path they travel to become a customer.

It can take up to 5-12 touch points to get a qualified sales lead. Each touch point represents a step in the customer journey. You must lead prospects down a clear, direct path that moves them from first contact to purchase.

If you know your customers, you know what they expect. But to get the most from your marketing, advertising, and sales, you must also consider where each prospect is in the buying decision.

·      Do you provide relevant information to various types of prospects?

·      Will that information position you as an expert and authority?

·      Does everything you create align with your brand purpose, promise, and message?

5. Review Feedback and Sales Data

Most companies receive a lot of feedback from their customers, even when they don’t ask for it. But it’s surprising that many of them don’t use it to improve.

In this step, look for trends. What do people like about your business? What improvements would they like to see? We all enjoy hearing success stories. But criticism can be the most valuable feedback we get.

Also, look at sales data. What does it tell you? What are your most popular products? Do you see trends in pricing, features, or service? Trends uncover opportunities for new products and services that can boost revenue.

·      What can you improve, even if it’s your best offer?

·      What isn’t selling and why?

6. Review Your Website Analytics

Website analytics show how well your website performs. They also reveal what your audience is looking for and what they’re not. There are four important metrics to track:

·      Visitors (traffic): number of people coming to your website, usually measured monthly.

·      Bounce Rate: how many people come to your site and leave immediately.

·      Page Views: how many visits you received to each page.

·      Conversions: how many people took an action once they arrived on your site.

What trends to you notice?

·      Are they visiting multiple pages? Are they leaving after just a few seconds?

·      Is one type of content getting significantly more attention than another?

7. Analyze Competitors

To decide who to buy from, consumers compare products and services. So, it makes sense to include competitor analysis in a brand audit.

Your competitors constantly change. They’re creating new offers and adjusting prices. Some are tapping into other markets, some are closing, and new entrants emerge every year.

For this step of the audit, look at your top competitors in each market and online.

·      What are they doing better than you?

·      How can you improve on what they’re doing?

8. Evaluate Your Offers

Before you can get a sale, you must make an offer. An offer isn’t just pitching your product or service, nor is it a call-to-action. It encompasses the functional, technical, and emotional benefits that customers will receive.

Given how competitive marketplace is, your offer can’t be average, mediocre, or even good.

To create an excellent offer, you must have something to compare it to. A good analysis of your competitors will make it easier for you to contrast your offers with theirs. 

·      Functional: what the product or service does or helps the customer accomplish

·      Technical: the quality of the product or service (design, ingredients, materials, etc.)

·      Emotional: how the product or service makes the customer feel (safe, happy, smart)

An offer with all types of benefits will perform better. When creating an offer, it’s vital to provide all benefits. Don’t assume customers will figure out what they are without your help.

·      Does each offer touch on the functional, technical, and emotional benefits customers will get from them?

·      How do your offers compare to similar ones from competitors?

·      Can you improve them in some way?

·      Are your offers compelling and unique? How?

9. Assess Your Logo, Colors, and Brand Imagery

Now we come to the part most people associate with branding—visuals. Your images should reflect your level of professionalism, quality, and expertise.

Consider the impression you want your brand images to make and the preferences of your target audience. The key is to blend the image you want to portray with what appeals to your prospective customers.

Learn more about your customers—research—discover what they like and what they don’t.

The quality of your images is critical. You can be the best at what you do, but if your brand images—such as logos, websites, sm—don’t reflect it, they will damage your credibility. 

Conclusion

A brand audit will help you stay on brand and engaged with your audience. How often you should perform an audit will vary, but a good rule of thumb is at least once each year.

In this article, I’ve given you a 9-step framework for conducting a brand audit. They are:

1. Calibrate your brand DNA.

2. Evaluate your goals.

3. Assess your target audience and media channels.

 4. Evaluate the customer journey.

5. Review feedback and sales data.

6. Review website analytics and online metrics.

7. Analyze competitors.

8. Evaluate your offers. 

9. Assess your brand images.

 Completing a brand audit will keep you in tune with your purpose and in touch with your audience. It’s a powerful tool that will make your organization more efficient and successful.