Are you afraid of a visit from the CFPB? Most lenders and vendors a like, are. However, not every audit needs to be the source of tension. In the article “Recommendations for a 1 hour brand audit process” by Smart Insights, the author says there could be a number of reasons for carrying out your brand audit and there are as many metrics to be considered in order to get the answers, as far as the reception of your brand is concerned.
It’s a crowded mortgage world, so your brand needs to stand out and a regular brand audit will make sure that you stay different. So, what is included in a brand audit? You may be looking to acquire more customers, or your business may have taken a downwards slope, or maybe your revenue is going down. No matter what, even if your business is doing well, it is essential to do a regular online brand audit.
Why should every business carry our a brand audit? The reasons include:
>> Position of your business: A thorough brand audit gives you a complete report about the current position of your business. This includes rankings on search, engagement on social media, and how you stand against your competitors.
>> Discover the strengths and weaknesses of your online marketing: A brand audit shows the strengths or the weaknesses that in your overall branding techniques. It also helps you in knowing if your weaknesses are dominating to an extent that your online engagement rate, conversion rate are declining.
>> Helps in meeting the needs of your prospects: Your prospects are looking for some information, products, or services online. Your audit will help you in knowing exactly what drives their decisions to turn them into your customers. It could be a product, a content strategy, a landing page that could have propelled a certain action from your prospects.
>> Understand audience perception about your brand: It will help you understand exactly how your brand is being received by your prospects. There may be times when a customer could have been unsatisfied with your services, resulting in a negative online review. On auditing your brand, you will be able to know the trouble points within your business and sort them out.
Here’s what you should ask yourself during one of these audits:
>> How is your brand received by your audience? A thorough analysis of your brand perception is a must; it lets you know what the audience sentiment is.
>> Is your brand message clear? One mistake many brands make is that they beat the same story to death in their content marketing strategy, boasting about themselves and their achievements. Your audience wants to see something that could relieve their pain points. That is why they are coming to you in the first place. This helps your brand in establishing an authority in their thoughts.
When it comes to marketing, you will find it tough to argue with anything that Google comes up with. They deliver services in the simplest form. With this brand message, not only does Google advertise the spirit of their own innovation, but also encourages self-discovery telling the audience that they have the potential to make the best out of web. It sounds commercial and also tells us that passionate people could make the best out of the web.
>> What is the customer persona? Are you targeting the right audience? All your marketing efforts should focus on your customers, and you should be recognizing the ideal customer and base all the efforts on that analysis. What is the age, gender, job profile of your customer, in addition to his decision taking ability and the pain points are some of the major points that help in identifying the customer persona? The brand audit will go nowhere if you don’t know what you are targeting.
>> Are your customers fulfilling your required action? You may be looking to increase your followers, or send across a social message, or even enhance your conversion rate. For each and every thing that you want your audience to perform, you will need an effective call to action, which forms an integral part of your brand promotion, and hence, your brand audit.
The most effective brand audit processes are:
- Find how your company is referenced across the Internet
With the help of numerous online tools, you will be able to see your brand mentions across the web. There are a number of things that you could know by monitoring your brand:
>> Where you are doing a good or a bad job?
>> Which are the areas that need improvement?
>> What is the customer/audience base?
>> What is the need of the customer?
>> Are there some bad reviews about your brand?
>> Is the customer suggesting something?
- Analyzing the content
It could be tedious analyzing a website’s content, however by now most online marketers and brands admit to the fact that website content plays a major role in establishing a brand. A well planned SEO audit of the website content is mandatory for the overall brand audit:
>> Check out the ranks of the pages and see for which terms the pages are ranking.
>> Identify the purpose of the page and its content. Do they both justify each other?
>> Is the content on the webpage delivering on the expectations of the business?
>> Is the information useful to the target audience?
>> Find out if the page has been duplicated on some other website?
>> See if the page has all the targeted keywords used in search by your target audience. The same applies to the URL of the page, meta-descriptions, title, and the body.
>> In addition to the website content, your offline content is something that adds to your credibility. Thus check out all content that you have published as a guest writer to see the popularity, comments, if it is useful to the audience. Also check if the information in the content is in tune with the current trends.
- Claim your profiles
Most of the online directories will give you the option to get ownership of your company page, so that you could edit the given information any way you would like to. The verification process involves confirmation via the email sent to you. Once you are verified, you will have a quick access to your company’s account and could update the information.
- Analyze Traffic
It is worthwhile analyzing the traffic that is being generated through the website. An essential part of your brand audit is how much your website is able to attract as far as your visitors are concerned. Just sit down, take a deep breath and look through your Google Analytics that will give a lot of information.
- Feedback from company employees/associates
Your sales team plays an important role in your overall brand enhancement process, as they are in direct touch with your prospects. They know how your brand is being looked upon by your prospects. In addition to that, you could have a reseller tell you how their customers feel about the products or the services that you have sold through resellers.
- Value Proposition and how you stand out from your competitors
What is your value proposition? How do you define your brand? How do you stand out from your competitors? Check out if you are stating your value proposition and that it clearly defines your goal to the customers. The brand should be described in a clear cut way. Everything associated with your brand – the brand name, logo, content, pictures, should all be copyrighted to avoid any hassles later.
- Survey your customers
A great way to know brand perception is by running online. It is a quick and effective way to check how customers feel about your brand. There could be many questions pertaining to your brand that you could ask your customers.
- Monitoring your social media presence
The aim of the social media audit is to help the businesses in identifying the best ways to utilize social media.
Managing your online brand requires an ‘always-on’ focus and dedication from a team to continuously review and improve your online interactions.