5 Steps to Conduct a Brand Audit to Get a Complete Picture of Your Company’s Health

Anyone, at any time, can sell products and services. On the other hand, creating a relevant and compelling brand is a difficult task. Most importantly, having strong and healthy brands aids in increasing profits and effectively promoting the company’s value.

Do you want a complete picture of your company’s performance and market position? Brand Audit will assist you in remaining focused, productive, and efficient. 

That’s why we’ve put together this handy guide that will walk you through the five steps of conducting a brand audit.

1. Overview

A brand audit is a detailed examination of your company’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as growth and transformation opportunities. It compares how your company is doing now to its previous goals and then opens up a larger picture to evaluate how your brand is performing in the market.

A thorough brand audit process can be used for the following purposes:

• Enhance your brand’s effectiveness.
• Make a list of your positive and negative qualities.
• Make changes to your approach to satisfying your customers’ needs.
• Learn how your company compares to the competition in the market.

2. When Is It Necessary To Conduct A Brand Audit?

You may be wondering why and when a comprehensive brand audit is required. Also, why have we created a guide for conducting a brand audit? A brand audit for your firm could be advantageous in the following situations:

• When you notice that the success rate of your company is decreasing, you should conduct a brand audit.
• Assume you’ve noticed that your campaigns aren’t as effective as they used to be or that your sales are decreasing. If you see such signs of weakened business moves, you should conduct a brand audit.
• You can also conduct brand audits to expand and build your business empire. Assume you want to launch a new product or expand your market. In these cases, you can also conduct a brand audit.
• Your business is new, and you’re still deciding what you want to do with it.
• Your company has grown significantly in recent years, and you’re unsure of the direction of your brand.
• Your company’s growth has slowed, and you doubt the strength of your brand. You’ve decided to rebrand.

Getting a brand audit on a regular basis will help you keep your brand’s impact at its peak, no matter where your company is in its life cycle. A brand audit once or twice a year is sufficient for most businesses.

Okay, then. So now you’re aware of the advantages of performing a brand audit and why it’s a good idea. Let’s move forward and understand the tips for performing a brand audit.

3. Steps for A Successful Brand Audit 

Create A Brand Summary – Be Aware of What You’re Attempting to Measure 

Refer to your marketing strategy to determine your company’s mission, vision, unique selling proposition, and positioning. This will serve as a foundation for evaluating the effectiveness of your brand aspects. Answer the following questions about your brand to get started:

• What are your brand’s objectives?
• What are your company’s core values?
• What does your brand guarantee your target customers?
• Who is your most important customer?
• What is the personality of your company?

This will allow you to think about any issues you’re having with your company and wish to address. Before assessing what others think of your brand, define it for yourself. So when it comes to how to conduct a brand audit, creating a brand summary should be the foremost step.

Assess Your Target Audience

A brand audit will aid you in determining the quality of your target audience in the near and long term. The following are the questions to be answered in this step:

• Are your customers experiencing the same emotions you want them to when interacting with your brand?
• Is your present target audience getting the most out of the value you’re providing, and can they help you achieve your objectives?

You’re ready to advance to the next level if you say yes. If not, it’s time to reconsider who your company serves, as your target market has a significant influence on your performance. It won’t matter how wonderful your service or product is if your target market doesn’t appreciate it. And the best audiences aren’t always the most qualified. 

Your target audience’s purchasing habits are influenced by their circumstances. The key is determining whether the changes are temporary or permanent. You can also collect testimonials from previous customers/customers, read them, and look for common themes. You can also review earlier customer correspondence, such as emails or social media comments. Take note of the issues that have been brought up, both positive and negative.

Perform Surveys – Question Your Customers

Get direct feedback from your customers to learn how they feel about your company and how they talk about it. Conducting an online poll is a good place to start as usually each poll includes one question, so every time you want to ask something, you can go ahead with a new question in your poll. You can use the following questions as examples:

• Which of the following three words would you use to characterize our company?
• How would you evaluate your entire website experience?
• What is one thing you won’t find anywhere else that we do?
• Was your call handled fast by the customer care representative?
• What do you want us to continue (or stop) doing?
• What item could we add to the product/service to help you be more productive?
• In terms of navigational ease, how would you evaluate our website?

Using an online poll to check how customers feel about your company quickly is a simple and efficient branding strategy to provide a great customer experience. You can also take email surveys, direct mail surveys, and telephonic surveys.

Do Competitor Analysis – Know Your Competitors

After determining their business, strong brands examine their competitors as customers compare products and services before deciding who to buy from. This has a significant impact on their brand’s competitors. As a result, when it comes to how to do a brand audit, one of the most important steps should be competitor research.

Your competitors are always coming up with new ideas and adjusting their rates. Some expand into other markets, while others close their doors, and every year, new newcomers arise. Examine your top competitors for this stage of the audit. You should pay attention to the techniques they employ. You must keep track of the keywords used by your competitors, keep an eye on their connections and their organic visibility, examine backlinks and other information. Additionally, you can run surveys for your competitors’ brands to gain insight into them.

Review: In-depth Consideration of Data

Your brand audit is in charge of conducting more in-depth research to determine whether you’re attracting the proper kind of visitors and which content is most effective.

You’ll need to track both paid and organic channels if your SEO or display advertising is working or needs to be optimized for websites. You may notice a spike in traffic, but it may be coming from a different country which you probably don’t want. Before assuming everything is going great, make sure you know what type of traffic increases. You can also check to determine if the traffic is coming from the target market. Google Analytics can be of great help to review websites.

Following example questions, you can consider-

• What are some of the recurring patterns you’ve noticed?
• Does the target audience go to more than one page?
• Is there a significant difference in the attention given to different types of content?

If your company has a social media presence, social data can help you get a better picture of your brand and access information about your customers that you wouldn’t get from other sources. You may gain a more profound knowledge of your potential customers by using demographic data gathered from social media. If your target audience isn’t who you think it is, you should modify your messaging.

Examine sales figures as well. What do you make of it? What are your best-selling items, for example? Are there any pricing, features, or service patterns that you’ve noticed? Sales data will, of course, be at the centre of your monthly brand data report as it offers information on the best-selling and worst-selling products/services, as well as sales challenges and market opportunities, and revenue-generating sales activities. Comparing it to the rest of the audit data, on the other hand, can assist in identifying issue areas.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that a brand audit is an ongoing process that must be completed on a regular basis. So, the next time you feel like your company is falling behind its competitors, or if your website traffic is slowing or your bounce rate is high, it’s a clear indication that you need a BRAND AUDIT!

Completing a brand audit will keep you on track with your mission and in touch with your target market. It is a critical tool for increasing your company’s efficiency and success.

Let us know your thoughts on the steps to conduct a brand audit in the comments below, and stay tuned for more upcoming informative articles!

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Written by – Kirti