Without brand auditing, you really have no idea if your branding efforts are working within your target market, and where the weaknesses are in your marketing efforts. So what are some effective ways to conduct a brand audit? Well, first I think you have to understand and define what you’re auditing. To me, the most important objective in brand auditing is making sure that you are hitting your target market. Very few companies can be all things to all consumers, so the companies that stand out are the ones that have identified their target market and are serving that market to its utmost.

Once you know that you’re really auditing the effectiveness of your brand awareness on your target market, then you can go directly to those consumers through surveys and questionnaires to ask them questions about your products and services. But you want to make sure you’re not just asking questions about how your consumers feel about your company’s products, but also what they think about your customer service, and why they choose to do business with your company instead of another.

Third, you should perform analytics on your conversion rates to determine the percentage of people who arrive at your landing page and abandon your site, and the percentage of users who perform a call-to-action (CTA) when they arrive at your site. Your conversion auto can also tell you which pages on your site are the most viewed, helping you identify where your branding efforts are strong and where it may need more work.

Fourth, you have to know what your competitors are doing. Why? Because companies that are doing better than yours may offer you some valuable lessons. For example, are they defining their business culture in a way that stands out better than the way you’re doing it? Are they more active on social media? If so, how? Maybe they’re mounting social media campaigns tied to contests that are engaging consumers, or they are creating content about their community outreach that is helping to brand them in a specific way.