What is Brand Audit and Why It’s Important

Businesses are always looking for ways to improve their brand. A brand audit is a process that helps answer questions like how strong your company is, what its strengths and weaknesses are, and how customers perceive it. It’s a thorough examination of how your business presents itself, including its products, services, customer experience, culture, and more. Brand strategy services play an important role in your business’s success or failure. It can help you determine which areas of your business need improvement. A report on the results is then sent to the business owner with recommendations on making improvements.

Auditing your business is the first step towards improving it and make better brand strategy. A brand audit can focus on any number of initiatives to help you improve your business. The process usually starts with evaluating your company’s position in the marketplace and identifying current weaknesses or opportunities for improvement. This will provide valuable insights into how to make changes to improve your brand’s image.

Generally, while doing auditing and making brand strategy services, you should cover three main areas-

Internal Branding - It determines the broader vision of your brand, including its main objective, values, and company culture.

External Branding - It includes finding your perfect logo and marketing strategies. It determines your PR team, website, social media presence, and email marketing strategies.

Customer Experience - This method involves sales processes, customer support, and customer policies.

A brand audit is a process of figuring out how customers, both current and potential, perceive your brand. It’s done through customer interviews, questionnaires, surveys, or focus groups. Internal audits can also be conducted.

This audit aims to identify weaknesses in your company’s marketing strategy, brand consulting services and create solutions to address them.
Here are some benefits of a brand audit:

Boosts efficiency in marketing resources
Improves customer experience
Help understand customer needs
Identifies areas for improvement

A brand audit is an in-depth, 360° analysis of your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Conducting one may seem daunting to you at first, but it’s important to remember that every company starts with an idea. Here are a few steps you should take when conducting a brand audit for your company.

Get a Clear Picture - For a successful brand audit, identify your business’s long-term vision and goal. Clarify what’s your main objective and who are your target customers. Think from the perspective of your consumers. Decide your final brand strategy goals.

Analyze your Marketing Techniques - Analyze and review your marketing materials like brochures, sales pages, business cards, etc. Now compare them with your competitor’s website and social media handles. Are your marketing techniques looking seductive in terms of color, design, and tone of voice?

Analyze your Business Website - Review your website in terms of its interface and analyze your traffic. See if your traffic is coming from multiple sources or single. Try to diversify it. Assess whether your website is targeting the right location. Study the bounce rate and try to reduce it.

Do a Survey - Surveying your customers is the easiest way to get data in bulk. You can easily do it with a combination of groups, emails, online polls, and text messages. Receiving direct answers from your end customers is the perfect way of analyzing your brand. Doing a survey gives you an opportunity to strengthen your personal branding strategies.

Examine your Competitor - Examining your competition’s brand, including their business website and social media, will answer your 80% doubts. See what they are talking about, and you can even ask the same questions from your employees.

Review and Track your Progress - Review all the information you’ve gathered above. Tweak the results which are necessary and then create an action plan. At last, monitor your progress and assure you’re getting the desired results.

You know what happens when you don’t clean your house for a while, right? A mess! No one wants to live in a messy place, and it can be tempting just to put off cleaning. But, the reality is that if you put off cleaning too long, you’ll have to do more work to get it back into shape. The same applies to branding. In such situations, you can also hire a good brand consulting firm that will analyze your business and submit the report.

A brand audit is a way of looking at your business from an outside perspective. You can keep your brand healthy and presentable by taking the time once or twice a year to assess how your brand looks, feels, and sounds from the outside.

A good rule of thumb is that if you change your company’s branding or positioning, it’s time for a new audit.

It’s not uncommon for companies to undergo periodic audits for better brand positioning. These are often to ensure that they’re living up to the standards set by their customers, their values, and the industry. For example, a company would want to prove that it offers great customer service or any other values it holds. An audit is an important way to know what they’re doing well and where they need improvement.