Most business owners will experience ups and downs throughout the business year, or as your business moves from one stage to another. It’s perfectly normal to have a quiet period now and again, but if you’re down-sliding more than you’d like and not seeing the recovery you’ve come to expect, or you’re losing customers to your competition in record numbers then it might be time to conduct a brand audit.
Why conduct a Brand Audit?
Discover Your Positioning – A brand audit will help you determine where your business is positioned in the marketplace and if needed, allow you to explore corrective strategies to help you get back on track.
Know Your Weaknesses – An audit will help you discover the strengths and weaknesses of your business branding. Knowing what you’re great at (and what needs work) will help you focus your energies where they need to be.
See Where to Focus – A brand audit will help you see how customers view your brand and allow you to more accurately align your offerings with their expectations.
How to do a Brand Audit
Look at Web Analytics – Checking your website analytics will give you a good overall look at the health of your brand. Look beyond website traffic numbers. Make sure traffic is coming from your geographic target market, check your bounce rate, discover which pages are most popular and where your conversions are coming from.
Talk to Your Customers – An online poll or survey is a simple, low cost and effective way to get valuable information about how people view your brand. Consider asking your customers things like how they rate your customer service, whether they like your website, or why they decided to do business with you in the first place.
Listen Carefully – Not just to what your customers are saying but the specific words they are using to describe their experiences of your brand. See which words appear most often, look for common themes and ideas. Ask yourself if these words or themes match your own ideas of your brand.
Make a Plan – Once you’ve identified problem areas, make specific goals to address the issues highlighted by your audit and set a reasonable timeline and actionable targets to help you achieve them.
