If you think that a brand exercise is an unnecessary effort, think again. That’s because a brand exercise is crucial to revealing what is unique, critical and valuable about your company.
Our brand analysis follows proven criteria for uncovering those important brand elements, which will help define and build a successful and strategic marketing platform for your company.
When evaluating your brand we encourage you to ask the questions we’ve created, as well as develop your own, in order to arrive at a strong brand proposition for your company. The more questions you can clearly answer, the more you’ll know about your brand. Your answers will help uncover your company voice, your messaging and will form the foundation of effective advertising and marketing. Without a brand, you are a ship without a sail.
What is a brand?
Strong positioning and a clear resonant message help define your brand. Your brand is the essence of your company.
A brand is not a logo, a color, or a clever tag line. These are only components of a brand. A brand is the affect and lasting impression you leave behind in the marketplace with your current and potential customers. It is the emotional trust and enduring loyalty in your products and services that you earn by meticulously upholding your business core values and brand principles. Strong brands can even define products, like how Kleenex has evolved into describing tissues.
In addition, you will be surprised by how much your internal physical environment defines who you are. When clients or customers arrive at your business, what impression is permanently left in their thoughts about you? What emotional take-away is planted?
Your corporate values and culture are also components of your brand. Branding begins from the inside out and is easily detected when these internal signals are in line with your external communications.
This brand questionnaire is divided into 3 sections - Brand Fundamentals, Brand Personality and Positioning.
I. Fundamental nature of your business
- Describe the nature of your service—in one sentence.
- Who are your primary clients or customers?
- Who are the people (titles) within an organization that you sell to, the decision-makers? Who will you ultimately work with? They are often not the same.
- What is unique about your company versus your competitors?
- What is the primary differentiator between you and your competitors?
- How do your clients or customers perceive your company?
- How would you like clients, customers and prospects to perceive your company when they see your logo and other marketing materials?
- Describe your company’s internal culture or atmosphere in one sentence.
II. Personality of your company
9. What is your work environment like?- All serious
- Comfortable
- Fast-paced
- Cheerful, casual, companion-like
- Team oriented
- Individual – revolves around the owner
- If your company were an individual person, how would you describe them? Circle those that apply and write in more if needed.
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- If your company were a place, where would it be?
- California
- New York
- Midwest
- Europe
- International
- If your company were a car, what would it be?
- If your company were a bumper sticker, what would it say?
III. Positioning and marketing for your company
- What is the primary quality that your company possesses that will yield success? In other words, what is your distinct competitive advantage?
- List the proof points that substantiate your value claim.
- What is your primary shortcoming or weakness that could jeopardize your success?
- What factors in your business environment do you need to overcome to succeed? Lack of awareness? Competitors? Tight budgets? Lack of a perceived need for your service? More advanced technologies?
- What is the precise business objective that you would like your marketing program to achieve?
- Who are the key stakeholders within your company that must review and approve your marketing materials?
The answers you collect from these questions should then be synthesized with other forms of research: how stakeholders honestly describe their current business situation, competitive research taken from all manner of sources and data, and the expertise and intuitive interpretations of an agency with a deep depth of experience and backgrounds. It is essential to create a brand platform document, which will outline your brand personality, brand promise, and key messages for your business.
All of this information is put through a process that results in a strong brand platform that will eventually influence and direct all of your business communications—your website, the user experience, marketing and sales strategy , content marketing and social media engagement, SEO/SEM, customer service, and the relationships you forge with vendors, suppliers and agencies.
For an additional resource to help with your branding, download our Brand Audit to evaluate what your brand says about your company.
Updated: May 2, 2018
