In today’s ever-changing world, successful brands regularly reflect on their performance using some type of brand health scorecard. What’s working well? Where are there new opportunities? Are they positioned for what’s to come?
Brand is a valuable asset. It reaches beyond a logo or name to span the associations people have when they think about your company. That means their experiences, their interactions, their perceptions – all of which are constantly evolving.
With a new decade around the corner, there’s no better time to evaluate your brand, both how it’s performing externally and how well it’s understood and embraced within the walls of your organization. To assess the health of your brand heading into 2020, ask yourself these five questions as part of your brand health scorecard:
1: Are customers and clients choosing you — over and over?
If the answer is no, who are they choosing and why? Audit your competitors, examining their communications, messaging, and customer and client experience to assess what they’re doing that’s connecting better with customers.
2: What do your customers and clients care about?
Your brand must live at the intersection of what’s important to the people you serve and what you do well. Do you have a clear sense of what matters most to your core audience? If not, perhaps it’s time to invest in research to ensure what you’re communicating about your company is relevant to what your customers care about.
3: Does your experience match what you’re promising?
Walk through your own customer or client journey to determine where there might be breakdowns between what your brand promises and how it delivers. If there are any hurdles, what’s causing them? Is this an opportunity to train your employees, so they’re able to deliver across every step of the experience?
4: Can your people articulate what your brand stands for as well as how they deliver every day?
If the answer is no, there’s a need to focus on your employee engagement. Build out a brand education roadmap with the goal of informing, inspiring and empowering your people to live your brand.
5: Where will your customers, industry and business be in 2025?
Every business evolves and changes – sometimes in small ways and other times in big ways such as acquisitions, new product offerings or changing business landscapes. Does your story leave enough room to grow? If you’re not getting credit for all you do, now’s the time to clarify or change your story.
Investing in brand is vital to the future health and success of your company. As we enter a new decade, there’s no better time to check in and ensure you’re maximizing the impact of your brand experience at every touchpoint.
Gina Kim is our Group Director of Brand Communication + Katie Conway is a Senior Strategy Director. Both practitioners are based in our Los Angeles office.
