Strategic Brand Audit
This audit is a powerful tool for identifying your organization’s market, mission, unique value and
personality. These attributes will form the basis of your organization’s brand, the total experience you’ll
promise and deliver to your customers. Your consistent execution of your brand at all touch points will
build and maintain customer trust and loyalty. Done properly, your brand will become one of your most
powerful assets.
In order to benefit from this process, you’ll want to be as brutally honest as you can in answering these
questions.
1. Current Elevator Pitch
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Mission: What you do, for whom, why and how.
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Vision: What you aspire to be as a company.
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Core Values: The beliefs and behaviors that are baked into your culture and essential for carrying out
your mission and vision.
2. Your organization’s objectives and timeframe
List your strategic objectives. Make sure each is: specific, achievable, measurable, and with clear
accountability:
3. Product offering definition
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What are you selling?
✴ What are you physically selling; i.e., what’s your inventory or basic service? (example: eye shadow)
✴ What are you REALLY selling? (same example: not eye shadow, but beauty & self-confidence)
✴ If you could use one word to describe your product or service, what would that be?
✴ Primary benefit to your customers
✴ Secondary benefits to your customers (if any)
✴ What are your distribution channels for putting your product/service in the hands of your customers?
✴ What are your sales channels (direct sales, tele-sales, channel sales, other direct sales channels)
✴ What are your marketing channels (advertising, Web, e-mail, direct mail, trade shows, PR, other?)
✴ What is your product pricing strategy?
✴ What are target customers’ current opinions of your product/service category in general?
✴ What are target customers’ current opinions of your organization and your product(s) and/or service(s)?
©2014 Shindy Media. All rights reserved.
Company: _________________________
Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Page 1
Strategic Brand Audit
4. Target market definition
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Who are your target customers?
Define Buyer Personas with these criteria:
✴ Demographics: If applicable: age range, income, gender/ethnic, geographic location, etc. of consumers, or of corporate
buyers if a business-to-business customer(s), including title, function, responsibilities
✴ Psychographics: If applicable: lifestyle(s), spending habits, interests, hobbies, affiliations (political, religious, volunteer,
civic), personality, etc. of consumers, or corporate buyers if business-to-business
✴ customer(s)
✴ Industry and company categories:
✴ Their pain points your product or service will solve:
✴ How they get information that influences their purchasing decisions (specific media, word-of-mouth, groups, etc.)
5. SWOT analysis
Strengths
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what does your organization do really well?
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what are the strengths of your product(s) or service(s)?
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what are the strengths of your brand?
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what are the strengths of your marketing communications program?
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What are the strengths of your market position?
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other strengths in the market
Weaknesses
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(inverse of strength questions above)
Opportunities
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to increase market size and share of market
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to capitalize on improvements in your product or service
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to optimize available resources
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to gain new resources – capital, assets, partners, strategic acquisitions, etc.
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to capitalize on other environmental factors (legal, political, economic, society, culture, living trends, competition)
Threats
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from your competition
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environmental factors (legal, political, economic, society, culture, living trends, competition, etc.)
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product limitations & resource constraints
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others?
©2014 Shindy Media. All rights reserved.
Company: _________________________
Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Page 2
Strategic Brand Audit
6. Competitive analysis
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Describe your competition:
✴ List by name, with strengths and weaknesses of each one, and what differentiates your organization/product/service from
your competition. Build a matrix if possible.
7. Your Brand analysis
Your brand is everything people associate with your organization; their experiences with your
organization on every level, from exposure to your marketing, to trial of your products, to interacting with
your staff. Perception is reality; people’s perceptions of your brand will dictate what they know and trust,
or distrust, about your brand. It can take years to build a strong, trusted brand; mere moments to destroy
it. You want to build and maintain a brand that supports what you are offering, makes people feel good,
and engenders trust.
Current Brand:
Let’s analyze the elements of your current brand:
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Company Name: what story does it tell? Are customers getting it?
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logo, if it already exists (graphic elements, colors, fonts, and reasoning behind them). Does it support your Mission? Does it
communicate what you want associated with your brand, described in your answers to the previous questions?
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tag line (actual words, and what you think they convey — is this obvious to everyone in your target market?)
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marketing materials — advertising, collateral, direct mail, Web site, e-mail
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marketing vehicles — choice of specific media and locations to advertise and promote your products and services
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distribution points — where your product or service is found and delivered
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pricing – does the price fit the brand image and the target market(s) you’re seeking (and provide adequate margin to your
organization at the same time?)
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what the press is saying about you
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packaging, signage, décor, etc. — what does it look like, or, if they are not designed yet, what influences would you like them to
incorporate?
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customer service — what should the customer’s experience with your staff be like to fit you brand? Does their current experience
match this?
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If you have current data on this, what are people’s current perceptions of your brand? And why?
©2014 Shindy Media. All rights reserved.
Company: _________________________
Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Page 3
Strategic Brand Audit
7. Brand Analysis (continued)
Future Brand:
Let’s identify what you’d like your brand to communicate:
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If your future brand (organization) were a person, what words would you want used to describe it? (Examples: trustworthy, fun,
feminine, passionate, wise, etc.)
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If you could describe what you want your brand to convey in three words: ___,___,___? In just one word?____
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What do you want people to think when they encounter your brand? (examples: organization with integrity, solid products, good
warranty, hip products, etc.)
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How do you want people to feel when they encounter your brand? (examples: safe, sense of belonging, warm, excited, secure,
confident, cutting edge, etc.)
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If your organization had a theme song, what would it be?
8. Inspiration
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What organizations, in any industry, do you admire and wish to emulate?
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Which marketing programs, campaigns, and specific communications by other companies do you like,
and why?
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What are your other influences (philosophies, heroes, mentors, lifestyles, etc.) and how do they influence
your business philosophy and strategy?
©2014 Shindy Media. All rights reserved.
Company: _________________________
Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Page 4