How Will a Brand Experience Audit Benefit Your Business?

Part of scaling a business is ensuring your branding is ready to deliver. A brand experience audit deeply analyzes every aspect of your branding and supercharges your development of a powerful marketing strategy.

A brand is an incredibly valuable asset for your business. It brings together your mission, values and visual identity to create a holistic affirmation of your business. Fully understanding this prized resource, safeguarding its integrity and maximizing its value are priorities many entrepreneurs overlook.

What is a brand experience audit?

In short, it’s an objective review of the overall health of your brand. In reality, it’s a deep dive into your business and how it is represented in every way, shape and form. A brand audit is a means to ensure you’re getting every aspect of your marketing and offers right. From customer service and public perception to product quality, a brand experience audit comprehensively analyzes your brand’s performance.

The benefits of brand experience auditing

1. Identify weaknesses

Fully understanding brand perception is the best means by which to gauge the limitations of your current approach. An auditor’s big-picture perspective helps identify marketing, communication and customer service weaknesses. Their astute assessments allow targeted improvement in these areas, increasing your return on investment for everything from marketing costs to staff training.

2. Fully understand brand perception

Whether we like to admit it or not, our own biases frequently colour our perceptions. No one within an organization can provide a candid overview of how that brand is perceived, whether they’re assessing external perception (by customers and clients) or internal (by colleagues). That’s where a brand auditor comes in. With critical analysis and no preconceived ideas, an auditor can identify each of the qualities associated with your brand.

3. Improve customer experience (CX)

Auditing is one of the best ways to assess the customer experience. According to Salesforce, 94 percent of customers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by how a brand treats them. If you aren’t aware of your brand’s CX, a detail-oriented auditor can provide an accurate overview of your customer service’s positive and negative aspects. Knowing these allows you to build on your strengths and improve your weaknesses.

4. Increase brand loyalty

Excellent customer service is a critical component of brand loyalty, but it is not the only component. One of the significant advantages of a brand audit is the insight it provides into customer behaviour and brand positioning. Social media often plays a significant part in brand strategy considering that a staggering 89 percent of customers purchase from brands they follow, with 84 percent of them preferring those brands over their competitors.

An audit offers an unbiased assessment of how recognizable your brand is, how your customers differentiate your brand from competitors and their attitudes about the service you provide. It presents actionable insight into your marketing activities, helping you identify potential growth areas.

Identify new opportunities for growth

The real advantage of a brand experience audit, however, extends far beyond the candid feedback you’ll receive on your brand’s health. It will provide the answers to many business questions that you may not even know to ask. Check in with what you know about your business by noting the answers to the following questions.

• What kind of ROI is your marketing investment delivering?
• How effective is your communication with your customers?
• Do your customers regularly communicate with you?
• Is your website easy to navigate?
• Are your customers brand ambassadors?
• How do your employees perceive your brand?
• Where does your business stand in the marketplace?

It’s normal for an entrepreneur to not have the answers to all of these questions, but it’s definitely in your best interest to get them. Understanding how your brand is perceived allows you to build stronger connections with your audience and recognize opportunities to scale.

It might be the most valuable aspect of your business, but without direction and growth, your brand will never achieve its full potential. Seeking advice from an auditor with years of branding experience, someone qualified to provide a comprehensive assessment of the external market, your position in it and consumer behaviour, will provide actionable insight into opportunities for future growth.

Take a look at how Mindspin brand strategy and design services can support your business goals.