What is a brand review?
Do you know that feeling that you are doing everything you can but it does not seem to move the needle?
Posting on Instagram, listening to podcasts, writing blog posts and creating pins should surely get your business to the next level. Right?
I think we all experienced it. We do the things that we are told to do because they worked for this person you are following online and they have thousands of followers so it should be working. Right?
The thing is: there is not just one business strategy that works for everyone.
What strategy will work for your business will depend on who you are, what your business stands for, what success looks like for you and how you, with combining all the experience you have, help solve someone's problem. All these parts will help you create your own brand strategy.
But no matter to which level you want to go with your business, to reach your goals, you need to have a strong foundation.
Because how are you going to decide if that idea that popped into your head about a new service or product, or way of marketing your business is the right thing to spend your time on?
This is where a Brand Review comes into play.
What is a brand review?
The terms brand review, brand audit or brand assessment can bring up some negative feelings. The words audit or review might sound painful or maybe you think they are boring. But to make sure you are on the right track and you have everything that you need to take your business to the next level these reviews are needed.
Our business keeps evolving while we get to know our ideal client better, our audience changes or grow as business owners and find out what we are good at or what kind of work we prefer.
Every time you see a shift happening you need to look at how you are positioning yourself in the market. And you need to make sure that everything in your business from visual branding, to marketing messages and website goals are all aligned with where you want to position your business.
But before you can do this you need to get clear on what it is that you and your business stand for, what values and believes you want to portray and how you can show this to your clients.
If you have a strong brand this will make you look more professional and build trust with your audience, which will lead to more revenue.
What can a brand review do for your business?
A good review can give you an overview of where your business stands at the moment, where there are risks and how the business could grow.
This will give you the clarity you need to get confident in what you need to do next, get you to move faster to your goals and will make decision making so much easier.
Can you imagine how much easier running your business would be if you have a clear brand strategy?
Goal setting
you know what your ‘ BIG’ goals for this quarter are because you know what you want to achieve
You know how to spend your week and days because you were able to break these goals up in clear to-do’s. No more question what you should do today
Website structure
Because you know your ‘BIG’ goals you can determine what part your website plays in getting you there
You can lead your visitors with a clear headline and strong call to actions to the page you want them to go to sign up, book a call or work with you
Branding
Because you know who your ideal client is you know which colours, fonts and tone of voice to use to get them to go to your website
You have clear guidelines for your brand and creating a blog post image was never easier with the templates you have for this.
How often should you do a brand review?
How often you should review depends a bit on your business but I would suggest that you see it as your yearly check-up and create a schedule. It could look something like this:
Business basics: think of mission, vision, goals and target market. It would be good to review this at least once a year just to make sure that there is no disconnect between what you are doing on a daily basis and what you actually want to achieve.
Branding: this would be done after you had your yearly look into your business basics. If you see a shift in where you want to go with the business or that your target market is changing it is time to have a look at your visual brand and make sure this is still in line.
Website: besides your brand, your website is the first impression of your business that potential clients get. Don’t go for just pretty, your website needs to show personality, reflect your level of expertise and do the heavy lifting for you and get you clients. To be able to do this it needs a review at least twice a year. Additional to this a monthly check of the statistics can definitely not hurt.
Marketing: this should be something to review every month to make sure you are getting everything out of it. Think of looking at the numbers of your advertisements, engagement on social media and your blog posts, newsletter open rates and adjust your strategy based on this.
Besides this; as soon as you are thinking about launching a new product or service a brand review should be done.
Use a brand review template
When you use a template for your brand review that has but a checklist and questions will make sure that every time you perform the review you look at the same things and that you don’t miss anything.
For this reason, I have created a comprehensive checklist that will help you asses your business, visual brand and website so that you can turn your business into a flourishing brand.
One last thing…
To get everything out of a review you need to be objective and critical and that is why it can be difficult to do your own brand review. Your business is part of you, you have put so much in there. The saying blood, sweat and tears is probably quite relevant in this case.
Believe me, I don’t mean it in a bad way. But how can you be objective? Besides that, you have seen your logo, colours, website etc so many times you just don’t see the small details anymore.
And think about this; the only parts of your business you can audit are the parts that you have. When reviewing your website it is important to have someone who knows everything about website structure, call to actions, coding etc. You won’t see what you don’t know.
Remember me saying you need to see your brand review as a yearly check-up? Letting an expert do your brand review for you is exactly that. A second pair of eyes that will go into every little detail and give you recommendations about your ‘health’ and what you can to get get the best out of your business.
Have you ever done a Brand Review? Let me know in the comments!
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