Doctor, doctor
We know firsthand that creating and establishing a brand is a big achievement – our Luminous rebrand felt like it cost us blood, sweat, and tears!
While getting it done is a cause for celebration, no business can afford to rest on its laurels. To keep your brand fresh and relevant, your website and comms channels need constant maintenance and attention.
While the effort of maintaining brand image may sound like a chore, it pays to get it right. You want a customer to be able to instantly ‘read’ the values your brand represents: 64% of customers cite ‘shared values’ as the main reason they favour a particular brand. And it’s not just customers that you need to impress with your branding. Reuters says 82% of investors consider a brand’s strength and recognition when making investment decisions.
If it’s been more than a year since you gave your brand a thought, now is the perfect time to carry out a brand health check. Follow our handy checklist to keep your brand at peak physical fitness.
Website
- Check every single page – are all the details and branding up to date?
- Are your contact details correct and up to date?
- Test your contact form – is it working?
- Look at your FAQs – are they still correct and relevant? Are there any extra topics you should be explaining?
- Is your team page up to date? Do you have any new starters that need a profile?
- Do your case studies still provide an accurate picture of the services you provide? (If you don’t have case studies on your site, now is the time to start!)
- Does your services or costs page need updating?
- Does the tone of voice of the copy still reflect your brand?
- Is your website optimised for the right keywords?
Social media
- Are you following more people than you have followers? Re-address the balance!
- Unfollow any dormant accounts.
- Block any accounts that look like bots.
- Consider refreshing your social media banner/headers and pinned tweets.
- Compare your social media activity with best practices. Are you sharing a variety of content and images? Are you using engaging hashtags? Are you posting regularly enough? All of these can impact your social media success!
- Carry out a competitive analysis. Learn from your competitors, then do it better.
Email footers
- Do all the links in your email footers work?
- Are the contact details up to date?
- Does every team member have the right email footer? Do they all match?
- Are the logo and branding in your footer up to date?
Company blog
- Does the content on your company blog reflect and relate to the prospects your sales teams are targetting?
- Is your tone of voice still right?
- Are you publishing content as often as you could/should be?
- Are you promoting your blog on social media?
- Again, check out what your competitors are doing and learn from their example.
Business cards and other promotional materials
- Do you have any business cards left?! If not, time to re-order!
- Are the details correct?
- Is the branding up to date?
- Is your office branded to perfection?
It may sound like a lot to remember, but just take it a step by step. Get a sharp-eyed team member to help you go throw each page and you’ll soon spot any areas that need tweaking.
Remember, a strongly defined brand requires near constant attention! Once a year is the very minimum you should be performing a health check on your brand.
Spotted something you think we’ve missed? Let us know over on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
