Membership Call Recap: Brand Equity vs Brand Evolution

If your brand is identifiable, how do you keep the brand equity and evolve with the times?

Reasons Why You May Need To Reassess Your Brand (Voice, Visual and anything in between)

• Your company is moving in a different direction

  • Up, down or sideways

• You feel like your designs are dated, or no longer “feel” like you

  • Voice does not feel authentic

• You’re not differentiating yourself from your competition

  • This is who I am

• Your brand is no longer clear or representative of your vision

• General Rule: Every 2 years 

  • You do not have to change every two years but you should take a look at it every two years.

  • Update something to stay relevant

How do I update my brand without losing the brand equity I’ve built?

A Brand Audit. You can DIY or you can hire a 3rd party.

What we recommend for a DIY Audit: 

Three Main Steps

1. Internal Audit

2. External Audit

3. Customer Journey

Step One: Internal Audit

Watch Simon Sinek “Start With Why” video on Youtube. A lot of Internal Audit questions will center around your “voice.” 

Internal Audit Questions: 

Why am I in business besides to make money?

Reach out to friends, family and spouse, personal brand can seep into personal brand.

1. What are my brand values?
2. What’s my “why?” Communicate Your WHY needs to be FIRST in your messaging.
3. What’s my vision/mission statement? Vision: Transform the world in this way. Mission is how you go about it. Look over at least twice a year.
4. What are the top 3 most important parts of company culture for my business?
   1. For companies with employees but also for those who will be hiring in the future. Poll employees, get feedback from your boots on the ground
5. Create and distribute an employee survey to gather feedback about what their “why” is?
   1. Your employee is the boots on the ground, they live your brand with you.

Step Two: External Audit

Do you have a brand guidelines document? If not, start to compile one! 

External Audit Questions: 

1. Logo, color palette, fonts (are your guidelines specific enough, or maybe too restrictive)?
   1. Canva is a great resource. Be consistent, sell through rate increase to 26%. When you are tired of your brand it means you have been consistent enough. Do you have enough flexibility (enough colors or too many colors and fonts-be in the middle, be specific.
2. Web presence [ website (mobile and desktop), social media (profile pics, photography, tone of voice)]
   1. Look at your competitors, aspirational brands. Make sure the logo can fit into small spaces on the web or social. Need a flexacon (?).
3. Email marketing [consistency in timing and visuals, platform]
   1. Would someone know if this is a communication from your company? What are your open rates? Platforms Klavio, Flodesk, MailChimp.
4. PR (Media Kits etc.), Advertising (paid print and digital ads)
   1. Has your Media Kit been updated, does it reflect your website and social?
   2. Digital ads-can analyze quickly and make changes, do A/B testing.
5. Other marketing touch points (brochures, business cards, digital downloads, even email signatures)
   1. Do they portray how legitimate your company/brand is?
6. Your competitors vs. aspirational brands
   1. Looking at your competitors gives you tunnel vision.
   2. Aspirational brands help you see where you want to go.

Step Three: Customer Journey Audit 

1. Customer Avatar Profile Audit (Is your current client your “ideal” client)? Are they ideal? 
2. Set up 3 interview calls with your ideal customers (to see what’s not)
   1. It can be difficult to hear what they may say so consider hiring an outside team.
3. Create and send out survey to current repeat customers (to see what’s working)
4. Go through a customer’s journey (proposal/purchase, onboarding, order tracking, automated emails etc.)
   1. Great tool for the future as you scale your business.
   2. Look at aspiration brands and how they change seasonally. 

Wrapping Up:

The results of your rebrand can tell you 1 of 3 things. 

1. We’re on fire. No Changes Needed.
2. There are some tweaks and improvements we can make but not a complete overhaul.
3. It’s time to go in a new direction and we need a professional (brand strategy)