How healthy is your brand!

In an earlier post I spoke about how a valuable a brand audit is to understand your brand presence. More accurately, it is critical to identify the gaps between the desirable and undelivered details of that presence. And I stated that it gave a new marketing person a thorough understanding of the business and was an excellent starting point that he/she could build on.

So, what is a Brand Audit?

“A Brand Audit is effectively a health check of the brand to identify and address problem areas with a net result of helping you turn things around and grow your bottom line. Brands are like living entities with life cycles”  (Lorraine Carter, 2017)

This article describes what a brand audit might be in subsequent articles will take each segment and embellish on each. At first the short overview.

The brand audit must identify gaps between the perfect vision of your business as originally detailed and the presence, now, as experienced by your customers on a day-to-day basis.

 I suggest you approach the task segmentally. There is overlap in that what you learn in one segment will enhance subsequent discussions. But if you combine everything you will end up with too much information, mixed together. It is difficult to identify the gaps and actions that must be completed.

1. What was the original vision? Reinforce the discussions and the vision you had in the beginning. Read the initial strategic documents, the mission, vision, and other such documents. Add your thoughts, with a focus on the vision. People you might include are your investors, your chairman, your key strategic staff and perhaps people with a broader industry experience. Any discussion should be light, just a general refreshment to build a common consensus!
2. Where you are now? Get a broad understanding of perceptions. Talk to staff; junior to senior, logistics, procurement, production, distribution, and warehousing. Talk to suppliers. Talk to customers. To wholesalers. To retailers. Talk to industry associations. Keep the discussion light and moving forward.
3. A more detailed identification of gaps! You will want to have a more detailed discussion with key people or departments or strategic areas where you believe the biggest gaps exist. That will usually include your sales director, a handful of key customers, the customer service team, the technical services team and any other strategic service teams that you offer, and which make your business unique.

And that will give you a good understanding of perceptions surrounding your brand. It is now time to move to the specifics.

1. What is the corporate brand position?  Your logo and how you use it use across platforms. And look at; use of colour, use of by-line, manner in which presentations are delivered, training materials construction, financial reports,  memoranda writing styles, reception areas, delivery trucks, staff appearance & clothing. And even to the way a visitor is greeted when he walks through your front door.
2. What is the brand presence in the field? Brochures, posters, website, packaging, delivery vehicles and the staff. Everything that your target customer sees on a regular basis.

Some of the visual gaps will be obvious. Perceptual gaps also start to appear. Note I am not suggesting you should start thinking about ways close those gaps yet. Keep an open mind.

1. Clearly identify your target market? That will have been done in your initial documentation. Behaviour patterns may have changed. Different people may be buying your products. The purchase decisions may have changed since your start-up. Thus far I have not suggested any professional consultancies or research. It may be that you would prefer to do the work internally. There are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches. But, at this stage it might be useful to conduct professional research. Often the customer will not tell you things to your face that he might say to a professional researcher.
2. Review your overall communications? That might cover basic components such as presentations delivered, brochures produced and use of corporate identity in the printed format. It could be extended to traditional advertising executions; television, print and other below the line executions. And you need to add in your digital presence. Website, LinkedIn, and other social marketing platforms you might use. Again, you are looking for gaps and differences in execution.
3. Review your social and digital strategy, focus on execution and success.

• Build a single picture of your position. Aggregate all the information into one picture. It is worth also looking at the current marketing strategy, with a specific focus on execution and success. What have I done well? What have you not done well? For what reason were those defaults?
• Complete a final review with key senior staff, holistically initially, still trying to keep your eye on the big picture.
• Do not allocate blame or make accusations. Corrective action will come. But later.
• Identify the gaps. And target those that can be quickly and easily fixed. The more complicated issues might require the development of additional programs. It might require re-tasking staff. Or it might require developing training programs.
• The results of your review could be publicly communicated. People could be publicly tasked to close the gaps. And the quick fixes can form part of your social content program.
• Create a situation where staff begin to feel positive by the brand audit and by the closing of the gaps process you have initiated.

Now to actions and commitment. You have reviewed the vison as first espoused and reached consensus amongst your team about that. You have identified the gaps and know where you team believe they need to be. They must show commitment to that. And when you allocate tasks to deliver against that, they must keep at it consistently and over a long term. Not for a week, not for a month but for a full year or until you do the next review. Then your brand will begin to close those gaps and achieve a position of trust amongst its proponents, its users and its customers.

There is a great deal more to read on a subject as important as this. But critical is not to read more but to consistently and passionately do more, the same every time. And when market conditions suggest you should change, do that. Consistently, and with passion. Good luck.

References:

Lorraine Carter. (2017). Need to Give Your Brand a Health Check? Get a Brand Audit . Retrieved from www.personadesign.ie: https://www.personadesign.ie/brand-audit/

 About Garth Sutherland

Garth Sutherland has an extensive multicultural understanding.

He has worked with local brands (creating independent strategic positions) and international brands (integrating the international brand vision with the local demand to optimize the “on the ground” brand presence). His strengths include bringing a strong strategic focus into all aspects of marketing delivery, working with multi-agency perspectives, independent thinking & implementing with a consistent and practical interdependent teamwork focused delivery. 

He is currently heading up  www.smallbusinessmarketing.co.za, a fractional marketing consultancy that specialises in the SME sector.

And writing on modern marketing.

If you are looking to maximize the strategic value of your brand opportunity, Garth is the ideal resource to task.

Contact him at garth@smallbusinessmarketing.co.za  or  +27 (0) 81 265 5803

Other posts in this series can be read at https://www.linkedin.com/in/garthrsutherland/ or on http://www.smallbusinessmarketing.co.za