Get better results for your small business with a mini brand health check

How to determine and get better results for your small business with a mini brand health check.

A brand health check is a great way for you to see the big picture.

What we know is your brand is the personality that connects your customers to your products or services.  Just like going to the doctor your brand sometimes needs regular check-ups to find out what is going on and how you can find solutions so your business can thrive.

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Whilst a full-scale brand audit involves an in-depth examination of every part of your brand, a mini-brand health check is more streamlined.    It’s about diving into the key aspects that can make or break your brand.  And it’s a quicker more accessible tool for busy business owners vs. running a whole brand audit.

What are some of the signs your brand may need some TLC

– Your brand isn’t grabbing the attention it once did.
– Inconsistencies across various platforms.
– Decreased growth and engagement.

If your social media posts are not getting as much attention or engagement or your website traffic has taken a dip (this could be the latest Google update), but maybe not.  However, by doing a brand health check-up (or mini brand audit), you can determine what the issues are and do something about it.

It could be that your competitors seem to be forging ahead, or your visual identity could do with a bit of a refresh.   It could also be that your brand’s messaging and visual branding are inconsistent.

If this is what you are seeing, then you must investigate how to improve your brand so that it stands tall.


Why it’s important to run a mini brand health check?

Markets and technology are changing all the time, so your brand must adapt so it can stay competitive.

By reviewing consumer preferences, trends, and competitors regularly, you will see where you sit and what you need to do to stay relevant to keep up with what’s going on.

Most brands are changing to keep up with AI and other technological changes to stay at the forefront of technology.  Have you noticed if the software you used when you started your business has changed as well?

 

Brand consistency

When talking about brand consistency, you want your customers or potential customers to be clear about what you do.   If the message is consistent then your brand will continue to build trust.

Message consistency should be the same across all platforms so there is no confusion.  Consistency also strengthens the brand narrative.  However, it’s not just your messaging, visually your brand should be consistent as well – logos, colours, and design elements.

Most of the brands we know, and love have consistent brand visuals and messaging.   E.g. Apple, Coke, McDonald’s.

“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person.  You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well. “ – Jeff Bezos.

Your customers

The way your customers see your brand influences whether they will keep coming back.   A mini brand health check helps you to understand how they feel about your brand.  It helps you to identify the areas where you can improve so you can provide great customer service.

This is why customer feedback is so important.  It’s where you find out whether your product, customer service or other issues can be improved and refined.

It also helps your business find opportunities to build your brand through storytelling. Reinforce the purpose of your brand to create a better bond with your customers.

 

Growth

Once you’ve dug deep, found the issues, and put steps in place for brand improvements, then you can look at how your brand can grow.

“If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you.”  David Brier.

 

The benefits

 

Find hidden strengths.
Identify potential weaknesses.
See opportunities for improvement.
Proactive problem-solving.
Build a foundation for long-term success.

 

You don’t need to find and fix all the problems with your brand, but what it will do is give you a look at the big picture.  When you see the big picture, you can unlock the full potential of your brand to position it for growth and sustained success.

 

 

Getting started with your mini brand health check:

 

Visual Identity

 

It’s important to ensure that your brand’s visual elements are consistent across all platforms.  This includes your logo, brand colours and all other design elements.  Your visual identity ensures instant recognition of your brand. E.g. McDonald’s, we all know those golden arches.

 

Messaging

 

Review your taglines, mission statement and your brand messaging.   Unless your goals have changed, your brand messaging should be aligned.  E.g. McDonald’s slogan – “I’m lovin’ it” launched back in 2003 and is still going strong.

 

If you haven’t set up these brand elements, now is a good time to start – download the FREE brand starter guide.

 

Online presence

 

To provide a good customer experience your website, social media and other touchpoints should be up-to-date and consistent.  Your customers should be clear about your purpose, messaging, and overall brand.

 

What are your competitors up to?

 

Look at what your competitors are doing and identify the areas where your business can stand out from the competition.  Take the steps needed to move your brand forward.

 

Customer feedback

 

This data is gold.  Look at customer reviews and feedback to find out what people are saying about your brand.   Find the common issues that need addressing and start tweaking.  Remember, you don’t need to fix everything at once.

 

Metrics (analytics)

 

Review your metrics – your website traffic, social media engagement and sales data.  Look at it on a monthly as well as a yearly basis.  Monthly so you can make small tweaks and yearly so you can see the overall brand success (not just monetarily).

 

Conclusion

 

A mini brand health check is about making small strategic adjustments that align with your business goals, it’s not about overhauling your whole brand.   It’s a good idea to perform a health check yearly so you can ensure your brand remains relevant and resilient.   Put it in the diary as a yearly event!

 

It’s better to have a brand health check regularly instead of getting to a crisis management situation.

 

Better results, and better branding when you define your target audience

Defining your target audience is the first step when starting a new business.  Most businesses start with marketing.   Why wouldn’t you? When I started a business many years ago, I thought it was time-consuming to do the branding.  I didn’t take the time to define my target audience. But I was wrong. It is so important.

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When I was working on my marketing strategy I hadn’t defined my target audience, so it was all over the place.  I didn’t know how to connect with people – my brand messaging was unclear and inconsistent, so it failed.

Despite losing some confidence, I picked myself up and started again. You need to understand your target audience so that you are getting the right message to the right people.

Data from ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) states, that 48% of start-ups fail within the first four years.  And about 77% make their first anniversary.

Why do I need a brand strategy?

With so much competition out there, it pays to ensure that you stand out from the crowd. Define your target audience to gain some control over how people view your business.

Strong branding with clear messaging, and consistent branding helps you stand out. This can then lead to trust. Show your customers that your established business is professional and credible.

The long-term plan

Your brand strategy affects all aspects of your business. It’s a long-term plan that helps you to develop your brand. It also has an impact on your employees and your customers.

Your employees enjoy working within a business that knows who it is and where it is going. It can create a sense of unity and motivate your employees to feel that they are part of something. If your customers align with your brand values, you are on your way to creating loyal customers.

Brand messaging

Do a deep dive into what your product is or will be. Look at your audience, market, and competitors.  Immerse yourself to figure out what your brand strategy is, then you will see your brand for what it is. When working on your brand strategy, you need to look at your brand messaging. This exercise will include:

  • your vision
  • mission
  • brand purpose
  • values
  • audience
  • belief system
  • value proposition

Once you have done this, you will have created the ecosystem for your brand.

Define your target audience

If you already have a business, look at your statistics for your website and newsletter.  This helps you to determine how many people are visiting your website. If you are seeing an uptick in unique visitors, you are going after the right audience.  An audience that wants your product.

If you are starting out you need to do the work first to define your target audience, and who they will be. Your target audience are people you target with your marketing or advertising efforts. The goal is to attract customers that align with your brand values and have a connection with your brand.

Targeting people who don’t want to buy your product or services, will get you more traffic.  But in the long run, it won’t do you much good. If they are not interested in your product they will go elsewhere for a similar product.

So, you want to target the people who want to buy your product or services. Choose people with similar education, goals, interests, and problems of your ideal customer.

Example: women, 30-40 years old, living in Sydney with a bachelor’s degree. They might be earning $3 – $6K per month and are passionate about interior design.

How will branding help me with my marketing plan?

Now that you understand and have developed your branding. You are in a great position to create your marketing plan, HR, and financial plans.

This is how branding can help your business:

  • Branding gives your business an identity.
  • It sets you apart from competitors.
  • Makes your brand memorable.
  • It builds credibility and trust.
  • It can inspire loyalty and repeat customers.
  • It builds employee spirit.

Action tip:   do your research and start defining your target audience today.

Conclusion

It might seem hard when you are starting your brand.   So, take the time to work through it.   And you will be able to develop a better long-term plan to market your brand from the get-go.  Get started today!

This is how I can help right now.

  1. Download the FREE Brand Starter Guide.
  2. Join my newsletter – resources and action tips to help you get your brand up and running.

 

Brand identity: one key element to crafting this is your brand personality

Brand Identity is a key part of building your brand once you have determined your brand purpose.  When thinking about brand identity the thing that usually comes to mind is a company’s logo.  Granted this is an immediate identifier of a brand but it’s not the only visual identifier of your brand design.

Your brand personality plays a big part. It is sometimes referred to as a set of human characteristics that are connected to your brand name.  This personality is something of a value-add for your brand eg., Coca Cola – its personality is about fun or excitement.

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So, your brand identity is the visual, verbal, and emotional aspects of your brand.   How does your target audience connect with the essence, values, and personality of your brand?    This phase of building a brand relates to colour, typography, and brand voice – among other elements.

I am not going to lie it’s not an easy exercise, it takes time and patience.  When I started to build my brand, I wanted simplicity, bold colours, and readability for my font.  It’s still a work in progress but it evolves as the brand grows.

Your brand differentiator

Your brand differentiator is how your identity is different from others in a crowded marketplace.   It’s how you set yourself apart from your competitors.   It might be the simplest thing, but it’s something you can use when talking to customers and on marketing materials.

For example, we can all identify with the well-known Coca Cola logo for its brand personality but also for its identity.  The bright red colour with the distinctive white lettering of the script font.   The red colour was designed to suggest confidence in the person drinking the beverage.   The brand also uses a distinctively shaped bottle.

Some ways to differentiate your brand from others could be offering free samples.  You could also offer or in-store trials, or sell a viewpoint (organic or hand-made, ethical buying). If none of the above are relevant you could think about providing a one-of-a-kind retail experience.

When you are determining how you are different to your competitors, make sure it is authentic and memorable.

Colour Psychology

Colour Psychology is the study of colours and how it relates to human behaviour.   It can also have an impact on how your brand is perceived.   Choosing the right colours for your brand is an important decision, it can help you attract and connect with your target audience.   Have you ever wondered why we prefer certain colours?  The meaning of a colour can be different for everyone, it depends on your upbringing.  For the most part, psychology relates well to brands we all know.

Some examples of colour meanings

  • Red can capture attention, so it is associated with excitement, danger, energy, and action. Brand example: YouTube.
  • Yellow generally evokes feelings of happiness, positivity, and cheer. Brand example: Ikea.

Brand Voice

You should think of creating a brand voice that matches your brand’s personality.  So, consider the relationship you want your brand to have with your customers.  Will it be friendly, professional, conversational or authoritative?

You will need to maintain a consistent voice across all your platforms – website, social media, and marketing collateral to maintain your brand integrity.    Your brand voice is your personality, but tone relates to the emotions and inflections of the brand voice.

When developing your brand reputation consistency and integrity are key elements.

Brand voice examples for inspiration:

Mailchimp’s style guide states “Using offbeat humour and conversational voice, we play with language to bring joy to their work”.  This was showcased in a brand voice blog by Hubspot.

Conclusion

Consistency is a key element when crafting your brand identity for:

Brand differentiation.
Choosing your brand colours and font.
Crafting your brand voice and tone.

As branding continues to evolve, do the hard work to make sure your brand is not just about the way it looks, it’s also about brand connection, trust, and loyalty.

The importance of brand purpose and how it fits with your tagline

It’s not to say that your tagline is not important — it is, but your brand purpose is more important.  The tagline of so many well-known brands resonate with you because you see them everywhere, however, it is not the starting point, your brand purpose is.

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Brand purpose vs. Tagline

As a new business owner or entrepreneur everything for your business comes back to the brand purpose.  The brand purpose is a belief about your business and employees that sets the tone for everything you do.

Your tagline is a catchphrase or slogan that is seen on websites, business cards and other marketing materials. The purpose of a tagline is to create a positive or memorable phrase that identifies your brand.  One example is KFC – “Finger lickin’ good”.

The difference is that your brand purpose is internal-facing and your tagline is external-facing.

Why is your brand purpose important?

It defines why you do what you do and it’s the reason why your business exists and what makes it relevant.  A well-known Ted Talk from Simon Sinek explains the ‘why’ concept well.

Your brand purpose outlines your business impact in the marketplace and the differentiation between you and your competitors.  When tackling your brand purpose, you need to consider the emotional connection your brand has with your audience.  You also should remember that it must be unique so that your customers understand why you or your business matter.

If you don’t have a brand purpose it can affect a lot of areas of your business from innovation to customer value, loyalty and referrals.  It provides a sense of meaning and/or belonging for employees and can potentially have an impact on your community.

If you think about it, when you go to buy something, you do the research, look at the price but you also choose brands that support your purpose and align with your beliefs.

How your brand purpose fits into your brand strategy

When you start working on your brand strategy you will already have evolved your brand purpose into something that you feel strongly about to attract your target audience.

Make sure your brand purpose fits with your actions.   If your brand does align with its purpose the result will be ‘happy days’, if not there will be push-back from your customer base.  Trust is important here and delivering brand purpose authentically is part of this exercise.

Action Tip:   When building your brand strategy or framework to market your business, make sure you are creating a brand that engages in the marketplace to change it, not one that competes in its own space for the sake of it.

Conclusion

Your brand purpose is more important than your tagline because it directs the way you define your brand strategy – mission, core values, brand voice etc. to attract the right customer for your product or service.

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