Questions to Think About in a Brand Audit
By Levina Kusumadjaja
Would you ever say yes to a surgery before doing a proper medical check-up? Of course not! You want to make sure it’s confirmed that you do need the surgery before making any decisions. This is how valuable a brand audit is for clients before deciding on any big moves regarding their brand. It is a brand check-up to evaluate how the brand is performing.
When you do a brand audit, you want to find out: Is the brand doing ok? Is the brand healthy? Does it look like it needs help in certain areas?
If this is your first time doing a brand audit, here are four focus points that you can be on the lookout for:
The goal: Is the brand reaching its goals?
It all starts with the goal. The goal anchors you and your client to objectively assess whether the brand is performing as intended. This will help determine in what ways does your client need to work on their brand. It’s even possible that after evaluating the goals, you and your client discover that the area that needs help isn’t related to brand strategy at all (i.e.: training the team on product knowledge to provide better customer service support).
The experience: What’s the journey like for customers as they go through the different brand touch points?
Spend some time looking at how the customers experience the brand—from landing pages, contact forms, social media posts, online checkout systems, newsletter signups, to in-store customer service. Is the process intentional? Does each brand touch point meet customers where they are at in their journey? Understanding the experience from the customer’s point of view will highlight areas of the brand that are already aligned with the brand values and areas that need to be worked on.
The consistency: Is the brand consistently communicating the same message and feel throughout the different visuals and touch points?
Look at all the brand’s visuals and messaging that are out there, and ask these questions: Do they use the same colors, fonts, and style? Do they use a similar language across platforms? One good indicator that your client needs a rebrand is when the brand’s visuals and messaging are all over the place. A brand can be consistent if it is built based on a solid brand and business strategy, and a lack of consistency shows the need to dive into strategy and potentially a brand overhaul too.
The feedback: What are customers saying about the brand?
Go over any customer reviews and testimonials you can find and listen to what they say. How do they describe the brand? Do customers feel like the brand is solving their needs? Find out how customers perceive the brand. It doesn’t have to be an in-depth analysis, especially if this is your first time doing a brand audit. Just get an overview of what customers think about the brand and start there. Does it align with the goals of the brand and how the brand want to be perceived?
There is value in doing a brand audit before diving into brand strategy.
Doing a brand audit before brand strategy will provide great insights for building the brand strategy because brand audits give you a clearer picture of where the brand is now. And beyond that, a brand audit will help you and your client know what would be a good next step—whether doing a rebrand or brand strategy workshop is the best alternative for the current time. Perhaps you can try incorporating brand audit as a part of your process for your next brand strategy project?
Cheers!
Levina
P.S. you can read more about brand audit in these articles:
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!