Is your business experiencing a downturn, a dip in sales, or losing customers to the competition? A new financial year is the perfect time to strengthen your brand.

Why brand audit

The purpose of a brand audit is to uncover how your business is performing in the eyes of your customers. A brand audit helps:

  • Unearth the positioning, strengths and weaknesses of your business and plot a course to correct it
  • Align your offerings with the expectations of customers
  • Understand the perception about your business

The three-step audit process

Step 1

Evaluate your current identity. Your identity is made up of several moving parts:

  • Name and tagline
  • Logo, graphics, and colours
  • Sounds and styles that characterise your company
  • Your personality, voice and tone of messaging

To determine if your identity is hitting the mark, conduct research. Generally small business budgets don’t afford research agencies, however even some basic level some in-house research can prove valuable.

To get a general idea of your current brand position, select a small sample of your customers and ask them open-ended questions such as:

  • How does this logo make you feel?
  • Is our written material appealing? If so, what do you like about it? If not, what turns you off?
  • What, if anything would make you like this brand more? What would make you like it less?

Step 2

Evaluate your marketing efforts

Once you have an understanding of your current brand position, review your marketing strategies. Taking particular note of:

  • Web traffic data, including how many new visitors you receive and where they come from
  • The effectiveness of your different messaging platforms (e.g., social media platforms, traditional advertising, etc.)
  • ROI form marketing campaigns
  • Brand awareness in your target demographic
  • Competitor analysis: what are you competitors doing that you are/aren’t doing?

Step 3

Turning your audit into action

Deciding what to do once you’ve completed a brand audit is the tough part. Generally it comes down to three options:

  • Maintain your current identity
  • Rebrand
  • Refresh

Next week we’ll discuss the pros and cons of each.