3 Ways to Review Your Brand Like a Pro

No strategy or brand development practice improves quality, builds awareness or reveals the best a brand can offer like a brand review. It’s a critical process to determine your brand’s true market valuation in order to fix mistakes or find gaps that have been overlooked. It is a necessary, albeit a painstaking activity for some who are hardened in their belief that their "brand" has been tinkered with enough. But left alone without reviews places the brand in jeopardy of falling behind its competition and losing market mindshare.

The brand review, or in marketer’s parlance, the audit review, is the number one way to set the correct style, tone, messaging and related communications expectations for the organization. Small tweaks are far less costly to make than complete overhauls, and the faster they are made the more in touch your brand can remain with its market.

Although big data is an awesome tool to harness while forming judgments about a brand, the brand review process should not be automated. Rather, individuals who have access to the big data who know how to harness its insights and power should be in charge. We have identified three ways to review your brand like a pro.

1. Keep it Distinctive

 There’s always a temptation to be all things to all people but nothing will water your brand down into nothingness faster than being like every other brand in your marketplace.

2. Keep it Interactive

You’ve been living with your brand for a long time but most of your new customers have not been, unless you’re leading a Fortune 500. So feel free to experiment with different branding approaches to see what sticks with your audience.

3. Keep it Simple

Far too many brands try to be clever to stand out but often trendy themes are selected and when they go out of vogue, so does your brand. What’s cool today probably will be dull tomorrow. A much more effective approach is to find the center of your brand’s purpose and a unique way to present it. This will capture your market’s attention and bring value back to your primary brand versus leading them away from it with a trendy approach.

Making the brand review an ongoing practice of your organization will ensure it stays current and relevant in the market, not something you have to do, but something you want to do. That’s how the pros think about brand reviews and how they keep their brands in leadership positions.

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Tom Marin President of MarketCues, a national consulting firm wants to hear from you! Follow MarketCues on Twitter for strategy and related tips. Tom also welcomes emails, new Linkedin connections, calls to (919) 908-6145 or learn more at: www.marketcues.com.

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