We know…we talk a lot about brands here on the Action Card blog, but with good reason! A brand can make or break an organization. Your brand is your relationship with your target audience. Do they love you? Are they just meeting you? Are you trying to win them back? Whatever type of relationship you have with your customer (or potential customer), your brand is what will win that business. So yeah, it’s important.

That’s a lot of pressure, right? Well many organizations are doing brand audits to ensure they’re where they should be with every element of their brand. Originally, brand audits have been thought of exclusively as a mergers and acquisitions tool, to put a dollar value on a given brand. While you might not need a full on brand audit, we find that it’s very helpful to implement the following elements of a brand audit into your field visit process:

• The standards of your brand image and voice

Are your brand standards being upheld in every aspect of the brand experience? That includes signage, promotional materials, marketing materials, store layout, customer care, social media content, and really any point of business/consumer interaction. Standards are one thing, but consistency with those standards is a whole other bear, and that’s where your field visit team comes in. It is their job to consistently uphold your brand standards. Do they have the tools and support to do it?

• The mission and strategic objectives of your company

If you were to step outside your office right now and ask five employees what the mission and strategic objectives of your company are, how many different answers do you think you would get? Too many companies keep all of the information in a tiny little circle at the top of the ladder, leaking small bits of intelligence in a fun game of telephone down the line, leaving the people who actually interact with your customers, totally in the dark. Again, the field visit team can be the company goal ambassadors. Field visits should be actionable, bringing location staff into the process. This establishes a more transparent, accountable review process and better results through education about how each individual role in the organization contributes to the company’s big picture goals.

• The strategies you use to reach your goals

Even if everyone knows the destination, if no one knows how you’re getting there, you’ve got problems. “Here are our goals and this is how we will reach those goals together” is a conversation that has to be constantly revisited. Business isn’t a static entity that happens in a vacuum; there are ebs and flows, pivots have to be made, and strategies have to be nimble. Again, your field visits are the perfect opportunity to gauge your effectiveness at relaying those goals and the strategies behind them.

The directives of a brand audit can be very helpful to implement in your field visits. Standards, goals and strategies are all vital stepping stones of success in business. How are you communicating and managing them currently? Action Card can help.