Evaluate Your Branding Efforts

It’s important to check in and see if the initiatives you are trying out for your brand are actually working.

Wendy Ruyle 1.12.2020

You may have a pretty robust marketing and branding calendar already established, but when was the last time you stopped to see what is working and what’s not?

We previously posted some ways to evaluate your ideas post-brainstorm session—when your head is filled with possibility and you need to prioritize. But you can use this same technique for your current branding toolbox.

Why do we need to evaluate?

This is easy to answer. It may seem like you have to keep producing that newsletter, writing that blog, or sending out referral requests because you’ve always done it. Not true. You want to put your branding efforts into what works. Time wasted on a blog that no one reads would be better spent on an activity that actually produces leads, interest, and conversions.

Where do we start?

Gather a list of all of your marketing and branding activities—website, blog, social and digital campaigns, proposals, collateral, advertising, events, swag, environments—any touchpoint you have with your customers or potential customers.

Next, gather some data on each of these touchpoints. How much time are you spending on them? What do they cost? What kind of feedback do you get? Can you trace any conversions to these activities? How many clicks and shares? If you have the ability, ask a few customers what they like and dislike? What helps them make a buying decision?

How do we prioritize?

Take the data, both hard numbers and anecdotes, and use it to evaluate each effort. Make a grid with 4 quadrants. At the top, write “Working,” at the bottom, “Not Working.” On the left, write “Easy,” on the right, “Hard.” Then place your current efforts in the appropriate area of the grid based on how effective they are vs. how hard they are to complete.

Once you have agreement on the placement of your ideas on the grid, you’ll know where to make some changes. If an idea’s easy and working, keep it on the to-do list. If it’s hard and not working, remove it from your repertoire or list out ways to improve your results. If it is working but hard, brainstorm ways to streamline your process or add to your resources. If it’s easy but not working, just let it go. Even a little time spent on an ineffective task is wasted.

If you end up removing a lot of tasks, brainstorm some replacement ideas to try out. Make sure you are evaluating your tools on a regular basis to make good use of your time building your brand.

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