Your brand is more than the logos and colours on your website. It’s what sets you apart from your competitors. To be successful, a brand should embody the unique values and personality of your business. It should be consistent and create trust with your customers.
As consumer needs change over time, what happens when your brand stops connecting with your audience? When there’s a discrepancy between your brand identity and your branding, or a mismatch between what you’re providing and what your customers want?
If you fail to address these branding gaps, all your hard work could be going to waste. This is why it’s important to continuously assess your brand performance and why brand audits are essential. To start it off, have a go at filling out this brand canvas.
What is a brand audit?
A brand audit helps you understand how your customers view and interact with your business. It’s a detailed analysis of your company that shows where you’re sitting in the market.
It allows you to step back and identify your strengths and weaknesses and see where your brand is heading. Once you know how your brand is performing, you can use the brand audit to improve your strategies and fill any branding gaps.
The way you approach a brand audit will depend on your industry. However, all frameworks should shed light on:
- The strengths and weaknesses of your company.
- Your current performance vs your competitors’.
- The expectations of your customers.
- Your voice and USP.
- Your core values and purpose.
- How you’re perceived in the market.
Other visual aspects of your brand could also be considered such as:
- The design elements. For example, logos and colour schemes
- Websites
- Social media channels
- Content and SEO
Why do you need a brand audit?
Did you know that up to 90% of marketing efforts fail? In today’s busy market, that high failure rate will cause a lot of trouble for companies.
A brand audit will help to increase the success of your approaches and develop new and better ways of connecting with your customers. A brand audit will help your business thrive. But how exactly?
- Improve the business to customer connection
Auditing is one of the most effective ways to evaluate the customer experience. Understanding how they feel when interacting with your brand will provide insight on how to better serve their needs. Uncover data to learn how to connect with your audience; and:
- Your target demographic.
- Where your audience consumes content.
- What emotions drive them to purchase.
- Why they like your company.
- What other brands they connect with.
66% of consumers want more meaningful brand experiences. So, knowing their needs and wants is a crucial part of your brand audit. You can use this information to create an impactful brand and form the best connection with your customer.
Tip: Create customer surveys or do market research to collect this valuable data. Reach out and ask for testimonials and analyse social media channels.
2. Know where you rank in the competition
Use an audit to expose your brand’s position in the market. That way, you can stay relevant in a landscape that’s constantly evolving. Look out for:
- The movements and tactics of your competitors
- Their new products or services
- Their prices
- How they target customers
- Their messaging, personality, and visual identity
- Which social channels work for them
Understanding your position will help you make strategic business decisions.
3. Identify branding gaps
A company with too many branding gaps can’t effectively communicate with its audience. Your gaps will undermine your position in the market which will give your competitors a chance to overtake you.
An in-depth brand audit will help you to identify your branding gaps. Once uncovered, you’ll learn which should take priority to fill. For example, if your website doesn’t reflect your brand or visual identity, how will your customers know that you reflect their personal values?
If this is a problem that needs to be solved quickly, this should take top priority. Once completed, your relatability will improve, and you can build stronger relationships with your audience.
4. Analyse all ‘touchpoint’ data
Your brand audit will help you to collect valuable data. Use it to highlight your branding gaps and determine where to spend your resources. Data will also help you to:
- Optimise performance.
- Increase efficiency and reduce costs.
- Make informed business decisions.
- Uncover consumer and market trends.
- Offer stronger products or services.
The data you need to uncover should reflect the goal of your audit. Which leads us to the following….
When should you do a brand audit?
To carry out an effective audit, it’s important to know the purpose of the exercise. Are you doing it as a form of maintenance to keep your team on the right track?
Or do you have specific problems that require precise solutions? Maybe your social media efforts are falling flat, or there’s nowhere near enough traffic heading to your website.
If you’re experiencing the following, you may want to consider doing a brand audit sooner:
Tip: To help you on your way, go back to the drawing board. Review your brand compass and remember your brand purpose.
If your brand is in tip top shape with absolutely zero issues, firstly, well done!
Secondly, you should still do an audit. While there’s no hard-set rule when it comes to the timing of this exercise, consider doing one once a year to stay on top of your game.
Also, letting you in to a secret, there’s a countless number of companies worldwide. In fact, the market is so saturated that even legacy brands have trouble keeping up with modern consumer habits. So, a branding tweak here and there will likely need to happen every year.
Stay on top of your branding game
The objective of a brand audit is to end up with a series of well-researched actionable goals to help your business thrive.
With these goals, you can create a detailed plan of action that will contain your targets and timelines. You can refer back to your action plan at any point on your journey to measure your progress.
Whatever industry you’re in, brand audits are a proven method for uncovering branding gaps and building successful businesses. It’s not easy to stay relevant in a world that’s continually morphing in unexpected ways. But if you’re armed with the right tools, you’ll be able to create a brand that speaks to your audience in a language they understand.