Why you should undertake a regular brand health check
Why should you run a brand health check? What is your brand? Is it what you want it to be? Or is there a disconnect? Your brand is the personality and culture of your company. It’s how your audience and clients see you. That being said, how do you know if you’re on track with who you want to be?
Brand health check – a regular look at your business and keeping an eye on where it’s going – can help.
What is a brand?
Your brand is the essence of who you are and what do you stand for; how others see your business or organisation. Defining and communicating your brand personality is one way to attract new customers and keep them coming back for more.
A brand is a company’s image, name, product, service or trademark that forms an important part of its reputation. It is important to take care of your brand, as it will be what sets you apart from your competitors.
Brand health check – defining your mission and vision
A well-crafted mission and vision statement can help to define what it is your business does, how it is unique from competitors, and what are its long-term goals. The mission statement summarises why customers would want to use your products or services while reflecting its values. Internally. it helps everyone know how they can make your business more successful. A strong vision inspires employees, shareholders, partners and customers.
Brand health check – defining what you stand for
Establishing your mission statement is vital for building and maintaining your company’s identity. A mission statement conveys your organisation’s core goals to both internal and external stakeholders in clear, simple language. It is important that these words ring true and are reflected in all of your organisation’s communications and behaviour.
Brand definition is about what you stand for, as well as how you engage with others to help them learn more about who you are and what sets you apart from other companies. Mission statements are key components of branding.
How do people perceive you?
The key to your business’s success is in having people perceive your company as being trustworthy, honest and competent. To do that, you have to know who your customer is and what they want from your business. You also need to know how people currently perceive your company and how they feel about you before deciding which direction to take for marketing purposes.
To find out more about customers’ thoughts on your company, we recommend undertaking regular (probably quarterly) brand health checks with consumers.
- Understanding what it takes to make customers think of your company as credible and reliable is vitally important if you’re going to succeed in today’s marketplace.
- Researching how your potential clients regard your products or services will help you decide where and how best to spend marketing resources.
- Not understanding customer perceptions will lead to poor decision making which can then result in dissatisfied clients – which, if not addressed promptly, may well spell disaster for your organisation’s future prospects.
The keys to building an excellent personal and professional image are trustworthiness, honesty and competence (in that order). You don’t build any of these without knowing who your target audience is, so when considering how best to market your product or service it is important that you assess current perceptions of what it means to be associated with your organisation or name by consumers.
It is often easier to move your position near to how your customers perceive you rather than trying to radically shift your entire positioning. Look at how much Aldi has spent on advertising they to change its status from pile-it-high discounter to its current ‘Amazing Everyday’ position as a higher quality supermarket.
Managing your message
It is imperative that brands establish their primary communication objective to achieve their overall goals. Creating messaging that effectively communicates your mission requires commitment and strong leadership capabilities.
How do you know if your message is effective? It might not be! There are many ways to measure your brand health. But with so many metrics out there, how do you measure them all? Start by looking at key performance indicators (KPIs) such as web traffic, conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and profit margins. If any of these metrics start to decline or stagnate, that can be an indicator that your message isn’t resonating with your audience.
The KPIs are important because they let you objectively look at what’s working for your business. For example, increased web traffic could be because people love your products or services; it could also mean that search engine optimization (SEO) efforts have finally paid off. Conversely, declining sales numbers might indicate that customers don’t like the products and services they’ve been offered, but it could also mean people have simply grown tired of seeing ads for them on social media sites.
In summary
Regularly check your brand’s health. Is it helping you meet your overall objectives? Are your values resonating with your customers and staff? Are your KPIs heading in the right direction?
Branding is not a one-and-done, as part of your management process, you should revisit your brand at least every 12-months or at any time of major change. It’s not suggested that you should change your logo every 12-month but you make sure your brand is still in line with your operations or vice-versa.
