What are the most important steps to prioritizing findings in a brand identity audit?

1 Align with your goals

The first step to prioritizing your findings is to align them with your brand's goals. What are you trying to achieve with your brand identity audit? What are the key objectives and outcomes that you want to measure and improve? For example, you may want to increase brand awareness, loyalty, differentiation, or profitability. You may also have specific goals for each element of your brand identity, such as your logo, name, tagline, voice, tone, colors, fonts, imagery, or messaging. By aligning your findings with your goals, you can filter out the irrelevant or less important data and focus on the ones that matter the most for your brand strategy.

2 Categorize and rank your findings

The next step in prioritizing your findings is to categorize and rank them according to their impact and urgency. Utilizing a matrix or framework to organize your findings into different categories can be helpful. For instance, if the findings have a significant effect on your brand performance and require immediate action, they would be classified as "high impact, high urgency." An example of this would be if your brand name is confusing, misleading, or offensive to your target audience. These should be addressed first in your brand strategy. On the other hand, if the findings have a significant effect on your brand performance but do not require immediate action, they would be categorized as "high impact, low urgency." An example of this would be if your brand voice, tone, or messaging is not aligned with your brand personality. These should be addressed next in your strategy to enhance brand identity and differentiation in the long term. For findings that have a minor effect on your brand performance but require immediate action, they would be classified as "low impact, high urgency." An example of this would be if your website or social media is not optimized for mobile devices. These should be addressed soon in your strategy to improve brand reputation and customer satisfaction in the short term. Lastly, findings that have a minor effect on your brand performance and do not require immediate action are classified as "low impact, low urgency." An example of this would be if there are some minor inconsistencies in the visual, verbal, or experiential elements of the brand. These should be addressed last in your strategy to refine brand identity and performance in the future.

3 Validate and prioritize your findings

The final step to prioritizing your findings is to validate and prioritize them based on your research, data, and evidence rather than assumptions, opinions, or preferences. To do this, you can use surveys, interviews, or focus groups to collect feedback from your target audience and experts. Additionally, analytics, metrics, or benchmarks can be used to measure and evaluate your brand performance and results. SWOT, PEST, or Porter's Five Forces frameworks can also be used to analyze your brand's internal and external factors. By following these steps, you can prioritize your findings in a brand identity audit and create a brand strategy that aligns with your goals, meets customer needs, and distinguishes you from competitors.