Brand Auditing and Your Website

When you have a strong brand, your business is more valuable and profitable. You can charge premium rates because you know your customers will stay loyal to your brand. Marketing and advertising become simpler and more effective. But if you notice that your business is not doing so well, it may be high time to consider brand auditing.

What’s a Brand Audit?

A brand audit is a comprehensive check on the current position of your brand in the market, compared to its competitors. With an audit, you’re able to identify your strengths, and more importantly, determine your weaknesses.

The audit should be able to give you facts (and not guesses) about the following areas:

• Your current profitability
• Your strengths and weaknesses
• The outside threats to your business
• The opportunities for profit and growth
• Whether your costs and prices are competitive
• Your competitive position compared to your competitors
• The strategic issues that face your industry.

Brand Auditing Methods

There are several ways of auditing your brand. You can hire a marketing company to perform the audit or you can also enroll in an online brand auditing course so you can do it yourself.

The method you use often depends greatly on the industry you belong to. For many small businesses, a survey is a very helpful way of gaining an insight into how potential customers view your business. The survey can ask how your customers found your business and whether they’re satisfied with what you’re offering. You can also ask them for suggestions on how you can improve your business.

If you’re running an online business, then you can do an online survey. In addition, you also have to pay attention to your web analytics. You need to examine your traffic (the visitors to your site), the location of your visitors, your site’s bounce rate (the percentage of people who visit your site and then leave immediately), page views (to see which pages are popular and which are not), and conversion rate.

You can also do a beta testing on your site to see if there are problems with your links, navigation, web pages, etc.

If you’re running a service, such as a car repair service or a plumbing service, you can check how your potential customers can find you. Then you can also ask your customers if they’re satisfied with the quality and price of the service you provide, and if they plan on using your business again in the future.

For restaurants, you can find out which dishes are selling well and which aren’t. You can try to find out if your customers like your restaurant décor, if parking is satisfactory, and if the wait staff is courteous and prompt.

What Happens Next?

Once you’ve identified your brand’s key problems and weaknesses, you can then take appropriate measures to address the problem.

Is traffic to your website down? Then maybe you need to improve your SEO. Are car owners going to other repair shops instead of yours? Perhaps you need to increase your business visibility and improve your prices. Is a new restaurant in town stealing your customers? Consider offering a promo or a discount.

In business, you can’t rest on your laurels. You have to aim to improve constantly. With a brand audit, you’ll be able to pinpoint which areas need improvement so you can address them as soon as possible.