How do you identify and prioritize your brand's strengths and weaknesses? (2024)

Some ways to get started is to begin is to dive into what I call “creative brand forensics”. Begin with auditing all of your creative campaigns across all platforms to look for voice, tone, and messaging inconsistencies. With so many companies downsizing marketing divisions and outsourcing creative to get the work done, navigating within established brand guardrails has never been more critical.

Brand audits are great, but fairly useless if done by the same people that caused you to have to do a brand audit in the first place. To remain completely objective, hire a third party to 'gut' your brand. You might not hear what you want, but you'll hear what you need to right the ship and get back on a path for growth and sustainability.

Identifying and prioritizing your brand's strengths and weaknesses is a bit like organizing your closet. First, you need to take everything out and take a good, hard look at what you've got. This involves honest introspection and perhaps some feedback from others (your customers, for instance). Once you've identified what works (those timeless pieces) and what doesn't (the sequined jumpsuit from the '80s), it's time to prioritize. Put the strengths front and center and work on turning the weaknesses into tomorrow's strengths - or at least into something that doesn't scare away your customers. It's all about turning that brand closet from cluttered to curated. Happy organizing!

Create context and observe what people do with it. Be honest about your weaknesses, sometimes they can become your strength. For example, Avis. We're No.2. We try harder.

A brand audit is an excellent starting point to identify the areas where there is the need for a strategy alignment. Even if channels might have different communication codes, it is required to show consistency in the holistic creative direction.

Brand strengths are crucial for differentiation and customer loyalty. Identifying them requires deep reflection on core values, problem-solving abilities, unique features, and emotional connections. By understanding and leveraging these strengths, brands can stand out and create lasting customer relationships. In my experience, aligning brand strengths with customer needs fosters a competitive advantage and drives brand success.

In my experience, knowing your (brand's) WHY is crucial for success. However, what's even more crucial is the alignment of your WHY with your audience's WHY.For instance, you may be helping founders manage their finances well. That's your WHY. Your target audience, founders, may have a wider WHY - they need help not only with managing finances but also with raising funds.If you can help them with this area as well, they see you as someone that is truly helpful.And it becomes your brand's unique strength.

If the brand is already existing, an assessment of the key aspects that our customers appreciate it is a way to understand the strenghts to leverage the positioning. And viceversa, where the customers complaint more, these are the areas where the management need to react or to change the existing approach.When the brand is new instead, the value proposition should come out after a detailed evaluation of the current market demands, the competitors weaknesses and the vision for its future reason to exist.

Identifying and addressing brand weaknesses is essential for maintaining a strong and competitive brand. For instance, during a brand assessment, we conducted customer surveys and analyzed feedback to identify areas where our brand fell short. We discovered that our website's navigation was confusing, leading to customer frustration and high bounce rates. To rectify this weakness, we revamped our website's user interface, improved navigation, and provided clearer information to address customer needs. By acknowledging and addressing these weaknesses, we were able to enhance our brand's reputation, improve customer satisfaction, and increase brand loyalty.

I'm skipping over the strengths and focusing on the weaknesses because this is the one most put off and it costs them. Yet, it is where you can make the most significant impact on your business. Identifying, and making the necessary adjustments to address weaknesses is a game changer. One thing I think a lot of small businesses overlook is using their weaknesses to their advantage when pursuing their ideal customers. Highlighting differentiators is going to provide context to the audience that you're pursuing. Speaking to who is and isn't a good fit for your business is a great way to clear the path for those who are the best fit. This is where identifying your weaknesses and not being afraid to leverage them becomes an advantage.

Prioritizing your brand strength and weakness together is so important that could not be underestimated. It makes it even more important when you have established your brand in the market. You need to be aware about everything even small things. When you know your strength then it helps you overcome any setback or failure in any worst situation.Also, knowing your weakness is very much more important than strength. Because it includes multiple factors that can impact your brand. You need to be aware of your competitors, your team strengths so that you could grow your brand consistently.

This is a really important step in the sales process for small businesses. It's an opportunity to set realistic expectations and goals for your business. Milestones and phases are a great way of planning out what you want to accomplish and tracking your progress. The action plan can and should include strategies and tactics for differentiating and positioning your strengths and weaknesses in a way that's more difficult for competitors to use against you. By addressing whom you serve and the results they can expect. In doing you're speaking to weaknesses that may not matter to your ideal customer & save time wasted on tire kickers who care more about pricing & things other than the results and the rewards of choosing the best-fit business.

The set-it-and-forget-it mentality does more in more businesses than competitors. You're essentially competing against yourself if you're not reviewing and refining your positioning as your business and the industry evolves. The goals that we set out with when we first started our businesses will change and evolve as the business moves from one stage to the next. Every level-up comes with a new set of challenges that will need to be addressed. We have to adjust to the level and space that we're occupying. I recommend a review if not a full-on audit at least once a year. The check-in will make sure you're in sync with your audience, their expectations, and your goals. The definition of success changes over time so should our messaging.

I like asking 3 simple questions, here adapted to this brand challenge: 1) why people do what they do OR why people buy my competitor; 2) why people do not do what I’d like them to do OR why do ‘t they buy my brand; and 3) what should I do to make people who buy my competitor start buying my brand. Helps a lot!