You’ve probably done financial audits at your business, but when was the last time you audited your brand? Most of us never think about taking a second look at our brand after we’ve gone through the process of creating a brand guide. Like other aspects of your business, the brand should be added to the list of items you review regularly.
So, let’s dive into what exactly a brand audit is and some reasons that your business may need one.
Definition of a Brand Audit
A brand audit is an evaluation of how your brand is doing in the marketplace and its position within your industry. It’ll inform you of whether your brand is competitive and doing everything possible to propel it to success from an economic standpoint.
Brand audits are usually done by trained professionals, but there are plenty of resources available online that could help you get started with doing a basic brand audit on your own.
Purpose of a Brand Audit
The purpose of a brand audit is to identify weaknesses within your brand as well as new opportunities.
Although the word “audit” may have some negative association and may make you feel like you’ve done something wrong, a brand audit is not meant for the auditor to go “A-HA! I’ve caught what you’ve been up to.”
It’s quite the opposite, actually. A brand audit is meant to provide you with an expert’s opinion of how your brand is positioned in the marketplace. Anything that may be preventing it from performing as well as it could be will be included in the auditor’s report and will be given to you, so you’ll know exactly where there are issues, which will make it easier to start deciding how you will go about resolving them.
If there’s a problem, a brand audit will find it and identify what’s causing it.
Conclusion
There are a lot of reasons why you may need a brand audit or why you should get a brand audit, but what it ultimately boils down to is that a brand audit is meant to learn about your brand’s marketability and economic value. This includes finding any issues there may be, whether they’re obvious or took some investigating to identify.
From the findings revealed in your brand audit, you’ll be able to start developing solutions to minimize or eliminate issues, which will improve your marketability and overall value.
