Posts Tagged ‘2009’

Now that you know where you are, it’s time to move forward and actually use that data to analyze your brand.

Problem is, you can’t know where you’re going until you know what you want.

What do I want? is a huge question, but it’s one you’re going to have to answer in specific terms if you want a good picture of your brand’s strengths and weaknesses. Yes, it is time for The Question Game.

In playing the question game, think of your average four-year-old.  Why is the sky blue?  Why do ants march?  Why did you just tell me I have to go to bed?  Why why why?  This might seem uber-simple, but it’s actually a pretty effective way of mining down through your meta-desires to specific action items.

Be relentless and aggressive.  Here’s a sample of the process in action:

VOCO Creative:  What do you want?

Client:  I want to make more money in 2009.

VOCO:  How much more money?

Client:  Well, $25,000 would do me.

VOCO:  What’s the best way to get an extra $25k?

Client:  Get some new clients?

VOCO:  How many new clients?  What kinds of clients?  Etc., ad infinitum.

Once you’ve mined down to specifics — I need 30 new paying clients for my Brand Miracle Service — get even more specific.  Where are these clients?  What strategies do you need to use to reach them?  What resources have you already got?

Here’s where the real fun starts.  Once you know what you want and whether you have it or not, you can assess your brand’s ability to meet those needs and get you where you want to go.  If you’ve decided you need clients who are female and who love the mall, you can then decide whether you have the collateral you need, the Web presence you need, the contacts at the mall you need, the reputation you need.

For each area, assign yourself a percentage.  Pretend you’re a high school teacher grading yourself on preparedness to go after your goals.  If you want to reach out to the Mall Ladies but have no contacts and a crappy reputation, you might be at about a 20% — a failing grade.  If you have all of the resources but one, you might be at 90%.

Do this for each of your goals and you suddenly get a much more realistic picture of your brand’s health.  Are you constantly missing your Web-based goals or failing to increase traffic?  Problem area.  Are you rocking the printed collateral and sticking to your marketing plan?  Great news.

It can seem intimidating to assign numerical values to different facets of your brand identity, but guess what?  You can’t progress until you decide where you are today and what kind of equipment you have going forward.  If you fail to plan, your next year might feel a lot like going for a camping trip with a can of Pringles and a pair of hiking boots.  Will you have fun?  Maybe.  Will you succeed?  Probably not.

In our next edition, we’ll make some real-world decisions based on our brand assessment.  See you then!

Image courtesy of woodleywonderworks

Welcome to Day 1 of VOCO Creative’s “Does It Work?  Assessing Your Brand” series!

Assessing your brand doesn’t have to be a daunting process.  Whether you’re a small firm or a large corporation, you have to look back before you can look ahead.  Should you get bogged down in details or past mistakes?  No.  Should you learn from what was and move forward?  Of course!

Step 1 of your year-end brand assessment essentially consists of one (deceptively) simple question: 

Where am I?

I don’t care about your ZIP code.  I care about hard data…facts and figures.  If you can answer these questions, you’re off to a good start:

• What one word would I use to characterize my brand’s progress this year?
• What specific actions have I taken to market and promote that brand?
• What kind of audience do I have?  Has that market changed in the past 12 months?  If so, how?
• How much money have I spent on branding this year?  What has been my return on investment?
• What metrics do I use to mark my progress?  What do those show me about my business?
• What am I happiest about with my marketing and brand strategy?
• What is my wish list for 2009?
• What is my budget?

Seem like a long list?  Maybe.  Consider it the kernel for your assessment.  These facts and figures are a great starting point.

Continue to join us this week…we’ll teach you how to use the answers you find to assess the strength of your brand and how to adjust if you don’t have all the information you need.

Photo courtesy of emdot

Mulled cider and Santa schemes aren’t the only thing brewing this time of year.  In fact, I find that my clients like to look back at year’s end to see how far they’ve come, where they’re going, and set some financial and business goals in order to head into the new year with confidence.

But how do you even wrap your head around your brand, anyway?  Brand assessment doesn’t have to be daunting…in fact, there are several quick strategies and assessment tools you can use yourself as you close the book on 2008.

Over the next week, VOCO Creative will be offering a fresh new blog series about brand assessment right here.  Check us out Monday, December 8 for the first installment!