Expert Insights and Processes for Brand Analysis

The brand serves as a bridge between an organization and its target audience. So, having a strong brand—meaning one that resonates with the customers you want—is a key to business success. Yet, many companies can’t pinpoint the weaknesses in their identity and communication that erode customer connections. And if they’re unable to do that, they cannot strengthen brand performance.

A strategic brand analysis solves this problem.

Understanding brand analysis and its importance

A brand analysis is a process that gives a company valuable insights regarding its target audience, market position, and overall brand experience. It can also help teams overcome specific challenges in the short-term.

For example, an analysis might reveal that a company’s messaging needs updating because it doesn’t resonate with the best potential customers. Businesses may also find that the brand strategy is no longer effective given the current market position. Problems like these make a company appear outdated or out of touch.

In most cases, the people in charge of running an organization (i.e., the CEO or marketing director) are so close to the business that they cannot assess it objectively. A brand analysis can give them an unbiased, 360-degree perspective. As a result, they’ll get the actionable insights they need to make better decisions that leverage the brand’s strengths.

The scope of a brand analysis

There are internal and external factors that impact an organization’s success. For example, brand reputation, customer perception, and the competitive landscape are external factors. Company culture, management, and systems are internal. Successful brands consider all these factors when planning for the future.

To perform a competitive brand analysis, you might include:

• Market research: Data on the target market, industry trends, and competitors’ strategies.

• Positioning: How consumers perceive your brand compared to competitors, including what makes it different (i.e., the unique value proposition).

• Brand perception: Consumer perceptions of and attitude toward your brand.

• Customer analysis: A review of the customer base, including demographics, behaviors, and purchasing patterns to find patterns and trends.

• Competitive analysis: A study of competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and strategies.

Digital technology and brand analysis

The brand analysis process continues to change, thanks to technology. Businesses can now use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to analyze a vast amount of data. AI tools empower analysts to gather granular insights with more accuracy. Now, companies can take a deeper dive into every aspect of their products, strategy, and marketing channels with much more efficiency.

Brand analysis uses a diverse array of informational sources. Social media listening, web analytics, and online surveys are a few examples of data most businesses have access to. However, companies can use AI to analyze qualitative data, such as focus group feedback and customer sentiment. The ability to incorporate this data into a brand analysis adds another dimension to the results and findings.

The Brand Auditors, for example, uses proprietary AI processes to extract information from data sources that give companies insights they could never have gotten with access to these technology systems.

Enhancing the brand identity and unique selling proposition

The identity and unique selling proposition help attract the target audience and establish a competitive advantage. Yet differentiation and unique value are becoming more difficult to create.

A brand analysis can help businesses identify key points of differentiation. These differentiators are usually based on product characteristics (i.e., feature and benefits) that customers care about. Companies can leverage this information to strengthen product positioning.

When it comes to accurately identifying these characteristics, technology again comes to the rescue. For example, marketers can use AI platforms to study reviews and social media comments to uncover customer pain points or preferences. This insight is invaluable for developing marketing campaign that have a higher chance of connecting with the target audience.

For organizations to expand and gain market share, they must be able to address weaknesses and close gaps in the market. An analysis often reveals unmet customer needs or underserved segments. With this information, businesses can develop new products, strengthen differentiation, and improve customer targeting.

Brand management analysis in strategic decision-making

Earlier in this post, I mentioned that because business leaders are so close to their organizations, they may not always be able to see issues that weaken the brand’s performance. An analysis can provide the clarity leadership teams need to make more informed decisions.

Teams may also discover nuances in customer feedback during a brand analysis that would have gone unnoticed. As an example, one of our clients received a five-star review from a customer that said, “Excellent product! Wish the website was easier to use, but I’ll definitely order again.” This review contains some critical information, despite being mostly positive. However, the marketing team may glance over a review like this because the attention given to negative feedback usually centers on one-, two-, or three-star reviews.

A good brand analysis covers a lot of ground, but the company can focus on a specific problem area if they choose. Examples are the efficacy of marketing campaigns, new product development, or creating additional revenue streams.

Changing consumer preferences

Consumers’ needs and wants change all the time. Businesses must adapt to stay relevant in the marketplace. A brand analysis can help companies keep up with shifts and trends in customer preferences. Most of these changes stem from market forces, like competitors and substitute products and services. Consumers don’t always know what they want until they see it offered. This puts tremendous pressure on businesses to keep up with the market.

A brand analysis includes a review of the market vertical, competitors, and target audience segments. This review shows companies whether they have capabilities to compete, gain market share, and continue to grow at an acceptable rate.

Maintaining a consistent brand image

In today’s digital age, a brand’s image can be tarnished in a matter of minutes. Negative reviews or social media backlash are just a couple of examples. An analysis enables businesses stay on top of their reputation and maintain consistency across all channels.

By monitoring and addressing any discrepancies or inconsistencies in their brand voice and image, businesses can take steps to ensure trust and reliability. This, in turn, can lead to increased customer loyalty and retention.

Evolving with changing consumer preferences

Consumer preferences constantly evolve. Businesses must adapt to stay relevant. Through brand analysis, companies can learn more about the changing trends and consumer behaviors that impact their success.

By staying up-to-date on emerging market trends and shifting customer perceptions, businesses can proactively adjust their strategies and offerings to meet the needs and wants of their target audience.

A company brand analysis vs. a brand audit

People often use the terms brand analysis and brand audit interchangeably, but they are not the same. Yet, both are vital for strategic management.

A brand analysis zeroes in on specific challenges or areas of the organization. As examples, an analysis might address goals like breaking into a new market, taking on a large competitor, or developing a new product line. Strategic advice aimed at using these insights for growth in specific spots.

A brand audit is a comprehensive process that explores every aspect of a company’s internal and external presence. The ultimate goal is to make sure the brand, its core values, and business goals still align with its market. Examples of audit components are:

• Brand communication and consistency.

• Business performance and market position.

• Aligning the internal culture with its external mission and value proposition.

Comprehensive steps for conducting brand analysis

In the following sections, we’ll discuss how to conduct a brand analysis and the insights you can expect to gain from each step.

Step 1: Establish clear goals

The first step is to establish clear objectives. These goals should address the primary concerns that prompted the organization to perform an analysis. Some common goals are:

• Identifying friction in the customer experience and steps for improvement.

• Evaluating the performance of marketing strategies and campaigns, including a plan to optimize the budget.

• Gauging online reputation and developing a strategy to address any negative perceptions.

• Tracking trends and shifts in consumer preferences and making necessary adjustments to the growth strategy.

Discuss these goals with your teams. Be sure to include any department that the analysis findings will impact. With clear goals in place, you’re ready for the next step.

Step 2: In-depth target audience research

The target audience is the focal point of every business. So, it’s essential to understand their pain points and desires, as well as anything they might lack from existing offerings.

To do this, companies must gather as much customer data and information as possible. Of course, primary data, such as demographic information, is helpful. But to get real value from insights, you’ll need more complex data. Customer service data, website analytics, user behavior, and purchasing behavior reports are examples.

This step identifies customer motivations. The idea is to find out what makes them tick, what triggers their interests, and their expectations. Marketers can use what they learn in this step to close the gap that may exist between what target customers want and the brand’s offerings.

Step 3: Competitor analysis and market positioning

Competitors are an influential for every business. Researching them shows companies the strategies they use, branding styles, and how they attempt to position themselves in the market. Competitor analysis will reveal how customers compare your business to them and what you do to create more differentiation.

A competitor analysis includes a review of the mutual target audience, unique selling points, messaging, and overall brand image of each.

84 percent of companies reported that using SWOT analysis helped them set strategic goals more effectively.

Source: Balanced Scorecard Institute

Step 4: Internal analysis

To develop a customer-centric organization, companies must put themselves under a microscope. And that’s exactly what an internal assessment does.

But this step can be challenging. Teams must be objective to gauge how well the internal brand—a company’s values, mission, and culture—helps it attract and connect with the target audience.

internal analysis can be messy, with lots of gray areas. But keeping the focus on the value delivered to customers throughout this step can yield reliable results.

Step 5: Brand identity consistency check

Many marketing experts beat the word “consistency” to death. But there’s a valid explanation.

Consistency is the foundation of successful branding. Building familiarity with customers takes time. However, don’t mistake consistency with being redundant.

Capital One Shopping research found that one out of three businesses reported that brand consistency helps them generate 20% more revenue—sometimes more.

The reason is simple: consumers become familiar with a brand when it continues to deliver the same message, images, and experience across all platforms and interactions. Studies in psychology have shown the impact of consistency on consumers, including their propensity to develop a sense of trust in companies they are familiar with.

And as we know, people buy from businesses they trust.

Companies must make sure their messaging stays relevant and maintains consistency throughout the organization. Marketing, sales, and service should support each other in all they say and do. The website, social media profiles, and other digital touchpoints should align with each other and with internal communication.

Step 6: Processing the data

A brand analysis can overwhelm most businesses because of how much data, feedback, and other information they must dissect and process. In this section, we’ll look at how to manage this phase effectively.

Consolidate and categorize data

In our experience, we’ve found it’s best to organize everything using one central database. This could be something as simple as a shared Google Drive or CRM.

Once you have all the information in one place, organize it into categories like market trends, customer behavior, competitor data, and performance analytics. This way, it’ll be easier to analyze and refer to.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis

Some data will be easier to process and analyze than others. Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis usually gets the best results.

Quantitative analysis

You may consider using statistical tools or software to help you analyze the numbers. AI tools and analytics dashboards let you visualize data, which makes it easier to spot patterns, trends, and outliers.

Qualitative analysis

Data like customer feedback and competitor strategies require a little more effort. Take note of recurring themes, feelings, and views. Don’t rush this step. It may take several attempts to understand true customer perception or competitive weaknesses.

Benchmarking

You can’t make progress without a starting point. Benchmarking shows you where you are now so you can set business goals and develop a plan to achieve them.

To set benchmarks, use your brand analysis results to compare your organization to industry standards, competitors, and best practices. Then, you can see what you’re doing well and where to make improvements.

Identify strategic insights

With benchmarks in place, it’s time to develop a strategy or revise the current one. To do that, answer questions like these:

• What is the glaring issue that currently has the most negative impact on the bottom line?

• Where are we falling behind competitors?

• Are we doing all we can to attract the most profitable customer segments?

• What investments have the lowest (or negative) ROI?

With the answers to these questions—and others like them—you’ll be able to adjust your strategy with a high level of confidence.

Step 7: Performance Metrics and KPIs

Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and other success metrics increase the chances that your improved growth strategy will be successful. However, it’s critical to use the ones that are most relevant to your goals. It’s also a good idea to keep KPI tracking simple.

For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, track direct website traffic, social media mentions, and Share of Voice (SoV). There are many other awareness metrics. But these provide a solid foundation for most online businesses. If you discover other metrics that are tied to awareness, you can add them later.

In many cases, companies do not have adequate KPI history. If that’s the situation for yours, start tracking primary KPIs as soon as possible. Within 12-18 months, you’ll see a pattern that allows you to establish a median for each KPI. That median becomes your benchmark.

Brand analysis tools and technologies

Brand analysis once relied heavily on manual processes. But, over the years (and more recently with AI), developers have created various tools to help companies collect and interpret data.

Here’s a list of both AI-powered and traditional tools you can use:

Brandwatch: An AI-powered tool that reports real-time data about your online presence. It scrapes social media platforms, blogs, and forums to track comments about your organization so you can monitor overall brand health.

Google Analytics: Most businesses that operate online already use this platform. Google Analytics tracks website traffic, on-site user behavior, and conversions. This information is essential for improving web content, the sales funnel, and increasing sales.

SEMRush: This is an all-in-one SEO tool and one of the most popular—and reliable—platform on the market. SEMRush gives marketers analytics for web traffic, content marketing, competitors, PPC, and social media marketing.

SurveyMonkey: This platform gives businesses the ability to create custom surveys. Organizations can use surveys to find out all kinds of things about their prospects and customers. Awareness, customer satisfaction levels, and net promoter scores are just a few examples.

Brand analysis models and frameworks

SWOT analysis

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a popular strategic planning framework that has been around for a long time. Businesses can use it to assess brand positioning and for problem-solving exercises.

Sometimes companies use a SWOT in place of a brand analysis. But a SWOT can be too basic and often lacks the depth that you’ll get from a proper analysis. We use a SWOT as part of a brand analysis, not a substitute for one.

Leveraging PESTLE analysis for external environment insight

Another popular framework used in analysis is the PESTLE (Political, Economic, Sociocultural, Technological, Legal, Environmental) model. Companies can use this process to assess the potential impact of the external environment on the business. By reviewing each element of a PESTLE, businesses can better prepare for unexpected changes that are out of their control.

The importance of brand equity models

brand equity refers to the tangible value that a company’s brand has, often based on the premium customers will pay for a business’s product versus a generic alternative.

Keller’s Customer-Based Brand Equity model (also called the Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) Model) is a common framework used to enhance customer relationships. The process examines the brand’s ability to connect based on its identity, purpose, and perception.

Developing action steps and avoiding biases

An analysis can be a great way to understand your market guide strategy. However, there are some hurdles to overcome.

Data bias

Bias can be an issue for all data types, external and internal. For example, limited perspectives lead to closemindedness when businesses are too focused on themselves. When this happens, a business loses touch with its customers. Organizations may look for biased data to support their optimism about new markets or products.

When there is incomplete or missing data, inaccuracies occur. Incomplete data doesn’t provide a clear picture, so the company may not get reliable results. External data, like surveys or online reviews, can be problematic when there isn’t an adequate sample size. Issues like these may skew the findings.

Decoding qualitative data

Qualitative feedback—what your customers think and feel—can be complex. Individual feedback often contains emotional responses or uneducated opinions. At The Brand Auditors, we use Natural Language Processing technology to analyze customer information, which gives us a clear picture of key themes and trends without making assumptions.

Ready to transform your business?

If your company is facing challenges, wants to gain market share, or is considering a rebrand, a detailed brand analysis is just what you need to help you succeed.

Take the first step towards excellence. Reach out now to schedule a free consultation and find out how we can help your business reach new heights.