Do you have a nagging feeling that your brand no longer translates what you are all about? Do you feel that what you do has evolved but your brand has stayed in the dark ages? It may be time for a brand refresh.
A brand refresh starts with a good and comprehensive brand audit. This will provide a detailed overview of the health of a given brand. It is based on the point of view that successful brands are built from the inside out. While conventional branding research look mostly at consumers, a complete brand audit assesses relationships with all of the important stakeholders of the brand, including both internal and external audiences.
So here we are with the key elements of a thorough brand audit:
1. Audiences
Be sure to explore all your audiences, internal (management, employee, sales channels, etc) and external (customers, prospects, lapsed clients, influencers, etc).
2. Method
Your audit should involve the use of both secondary and primary research and use both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, including interviews and online surveys.
3. Secondary Research
The first step is collecting all available information, research and intelligence from existing secondary sources. These will be: press releases, annual reports, sales literature, marketing plans, business plans and any other communication. You should also look at all your brands (and sub-brands, if applicable), competitors, market share, strengths and weaknesses, financial performance.
4. View from the inside out
Many brands fail to reach their full potential because they are not fully understood or supported by important internal audiences. So before undertaking any outside marketing research with consumers, it’s critical to first look at the brand from the inside out. This investigation should include the following areas:
- Company: this includes your values and mission, customer perception, customer service, sales history, your unique selling points, your objectives, your opportunities and threats.
- Products/Services: what makes your product/service special, key benefits to your audience (rational, sensorial, and emotional), price and future plans.
- Brand Identity: this include making sure your company personnel understands the concept of branding, identifying all your touch points and having a clear brand identity.
- Customers: this is all about understanding your customers’ attitudes in relation to what you offer, key demographics and preferences. One important question to ask here is ‘how much does the brand inspire loyalty and drive repeat purchase?’.
- Competition: this is about finding out as much as possible about direct and indirect competitors, their marketing strategies and about yours and their positioning and market share.
- Marketing: your marketing objectives, your challenges, your market segments, marketing strategies and one very important question: Does your internal team understand their respective roles in accomplishing the brand’s marketing objectives?
5. View from outside in
Getting the view from the outside in requires surveying current and prospective customers on the following topics:
- Brand Awareness: unaided and aided awareness of the brand.
- Brand Benefits: perceived functional attributes of the brand, perceived rational benefits of the brand, perceived emotional benefits of the brand, how the brand compares to the “ideal” attributes in the category.
- Brand Positioning: how customers see the brand as different from other brands, what is your position in the market.
- Brand Loyalty: do customers exclusively use your brand (vs. other brands)? Do they recommend it to others?
- Brand Touch Points: what is extent to which the brand is perceived consistently in advertising and other marketing communications? Is the brand message consistent?
6. Written Brand Analysis
The brand audit process concludes with the development of a written summary of the findings, including an overview of the environment, the category, the company, the brand, and the competition.
Every company should benefit from taking a close look at the health and strength of their brand – from the inside and the outside – including:
- Clearer focus and vision: Clarify the focus and vision of the brand from both internal and external perspective.
- Stronger competitive advantage: Better define the brand’s competitive advantages.
- Deeper customer understanding: Improve the organisations understanding of awareness, attitudes, and behavior of current and prospective customers.
- Communication with all audiences: Develop programs and approaches to communicate effectively with all important audiences of the brand, not just customers.
- More consistent messaging: Send a consistent message about the brand in all forms of marketing communications.
- Improved internal alignment: Provide training and encourage internal behaviours that are consistent with what the brand is trying to accomplish.
So there you have it, the benefits of a brand audit! Now the question is… Is your brand in need of it? (if you are, you know where we are!)
Marilia Spindler is an Account Manager at Happy Creative, a full service marketing agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
