Do you need to carry out a brand audit and don’t know where to start?
Currently, many professionals are building their own brand or those of their clients with the aim of differentiating themselves from the competition and positioning themselves in the sector where they are located.
However, in this process of building a brand, it is necessary to audit to identify the strengths, the opportunities they have and also to be able to compare your business with the competition.
But what should we do? What are the steps to follow? In this blog we will help you clear up any doubts you may have and you will learn everything you need to know, so that you can start an effective brand audit from scratch.
What is a brand audit?
A brand audit is the process where the current position of a brand in the market is evaluated. Doing it allows you to check the “health” of a company and as a result, it is possible to obtain a list of practical knowledge that can be applied to boost the company’s overall results.
In addition, a brand audit also allows you to understand how your customers see and interact with your business and it should cover three areas:
Internal branding: the brand values, mission and culture of the company.
External branding: the company logo, advertising and marketing materials in print and online, as well as:
- Public relations.
- Email marketing.
- Web page.
- Content marketing.
- The presence in social networks.
Customer experience: the sales process, customer service and customer service policies.
👉 Auditing a brand allows you to discover opportunities to achieve its growth.
5 benefits of conducting a brand audit
A brand is the greatest asset of any company -be it large or small-, because it is the main identifier that guarantees its attributes to the consumer, which is why it must be cultivated and controlled. Do you still have doubts about why you should audit it? We leave you these 5 benefits:
1️⃣ Help improve customer experience
One of the best ways to assess customer experience is through an audit. Whether you provide a service or offer products, the only way to improve your customer experience is to understand them.
2️⃣ Increase brand loyalty
The information provided by an audit on customer behavior and brand positioning is one of the main benefits it offers. In addition, it allows to obtain an impartial evaluation of how customers differentiate one brand from another and of the attitudes about the service offered. Interesting? Definitely.
3️⃣ Understand brand perception
It is essential to be objective with respect to our brands, here the audit plays a key role because it allows critical analysis of the qualities or weaknesses that are associated with a brand.
4️⃣ Identify weak points
We have mentioned them to you before, however, we are going to explain it to you. The importance of fully understanding brand perception is the best means of gauging the limitations of your current approach. Having a global perspective helps to identify the pain points of marketing, communication and customer service.
5️⃣ Discover new growth opportunities
Without direction and growth, your brand will never reach its full potential, you can prepare to be an auditor or seek advice from one, to successfully audit and achieve the results you want.
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By conducting the audit, you will get the answers to these questions:
- Does your brand have the reputation you want?
- What is the degree of competitiveness you have?
- Does it reflect your visual identity, the level of professionalism, quality and experience?
- Is it related to the type of clients you want?
Steps to conduct a brand audit
Identify what you are going to measure
It classifies what is going to be evaluated and what is expected to be learned. You can refer to the original marketing plan to see how it was initially planned to attract the market.
Do not forget that you must take into account the following:
- Your target customers.
- The offer of products or services.
- Social media channels and the competition.
- Evaluate your goals.
Consult with your clients
Beyond taking the data from the website and social networks as a reference, the opinion of your customers matters. At ADC we recommend conducting surveys by phone, by email, on your website or as part of the sales process.
Check the analytics of your website
There are four important metrics to keep track of:
- Visitors (traffic): It is the number of people who come to your web page, generally you can measure it on a monthly basis.
- Bounce Rate: Indicates how many people come to your site and leave it immediately.
Page Views: Shows how many page views were received on each page. - Conversions: This is an important statistic because it reveals how many people took an action once they landed on your page.
Monitor social data
These can help complete your brand overview, giving you access to audience data not available through other channels.
With the demographic information that is available on social networks, you can understand and get to know your audience better, if they are related to your brand, even what they say about it.
Note: Location-based social data can supplement web location data.
Review the sales data
Examining these along with the other audit data will help identify areas that require remediation.
Having updated and analyzed information from the entire customer journey, you can show which specific areas are causing problems, or opportunities that need to be further enhanced.
Monitor your competitors
The last part of the brand audit is to look at the competitors to understand their position in the market.
The advantage is that there are currently different competitive analysis tools that are effective.
Social data can also provide valuable information about competitors than your own brand.
Analyze the results and devise solutions
Once you have collected and organized all the information, what is the next step? Analyze the results of the brand auditthis will serve to propose appropriate solutions.
When presenting them, you can use custom templates that have all the information easy to read.
In case you are conducting the brand audit yourself, you may need help at this point to brainstorm.
Because? Because you must take into account everything you have learned during the brand audit and come up with solutions.
Tools for conducting a brand audit
- Questionnaires
- interviews
- Check list
- Software
Article of interest: Tutorial: How to run your organization in ClickUp
And to finish we share this phrase to reflect on:
“What helps people helps businesses.”
Leo Burnett.