How can you use a brand audit to improve customer loyalty?

1 Define your goals

The first step of a brand audit is to define your goals and objectives. What do you want to achieve with your audit? How will you measure success? Your goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. They should also align with your overall business and marketing goals, and reflect your brand vision and values. Some examples of possible goals include increasing customer retention and loyalty, improving customer satisfaction and advocacy, enhancing brand awareness and reputation, identifying gaps and areas for improvement, as well as benchmarking against competitors and best practices.

2 Gather data and feedback

The second step of a brand audit is to gather data and feedback from various sources, both internal and external. You need to collect quantitative and qualitative information about your brand's performance, perception, and positioning, such as brand assets (e.g. logo, name, slogan), identity (e.g. mission, vision, values), awareness (how well-known your brand is), reputation (perceived by customers, stakeholders, and influencers), loyalty (engagement with your brand), differentiation (unique value proposition) and consistency (across all touchpoints). This data can be gathered through surveys and interviews with customers, employees, partners, and suppliers; online reviews; website analytics; SEO metrics; email marketing reports; brand audits; and audits of competitors.

3 Analyze and interpret

The third step of a brand audit is to analyze and interpret the data and feedback you have collected. You need to look for patterns, trends, gaps, and insights that can help you understand your brand's current situation, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. To do this, there are various tools and frameworks you can use; such as a SWOT analysis matrix which summarizes your brand's internal and external elements, a brand pyramid hierarchy which illustrates your brand identity from functional benefits to emotional values, a brand archetype model which assigns your brand a personality type based on 12 universal characters, and a brand positioning statement which defines your unique value proposition, target audience, and competitive advantage.

4 Evaluate and compare

In the fourth step of a brand audit, you need to evaluate and compare your brand's performance, perception, and positioning against your goals, objectives, and benchmarks. This assessment should determine how well your brand is meeting expectations and standards, and how it is performing in comparison to competitors and best practices. To do this effectively, you can use metrics such as net promoter score (NPS), customer satisfaction score (CSAT), customer lifetime value (CLV), brand equity, and brand audit score. NPS measures how likely customers are to recommend your brand on a scale from -100 to 100, CSAT measures customer satisfaction with products/services on a scale from 1 to 5, CLV measures the revenue customers generate for your brand over their entire relationship with you, brand equity measures the value of your brand in terms of awareness/reputation/loyalty/differentiation, and the brand audit score measures how well your brand is performing across various dimensions.

5 Identify and prioritize

The fifth step of a brand audit is to identify and prioritize the key findings, insights, and recommendations from your analysis and evaluation. You should highlight the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your brand and suggest the best actions and strategies to improve your brand's performance, perception, and positioning. To do this, you can use various methods and criteria such as SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound), an impact vs effort matrix (to prioritize actions based on their potential impact and required effort), a RICE score (to prioritize actions based on their reach, impact, confidence, and effort), or a roadmap (a plan that outlines your actions, timelines, responsibilities, and resources).

6 Implement and monitor

The final step of a brand audit is to implement and monitor your actions and strategies. This means executing your plan, communicating changes, and tracking results. Furthermore, you should review and update your brand audit regularly as your brand and market conditions may evolve over time. To help with this step, you can use project management software to organize tasks and projects, brand guidelines to define your brand's identity and assets, a brand dashboard to monitor performance, perception, and positioning metrics, and a brand audit report to summarize the process, findings, insights, and recommendations.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?