By Nick Mann

When many people hear the word “brand,” they think of big-name companies like Nike, Google and Apple. But, in reality, every business has a brand — even the smallest mom-and-pop shops. Providing a consistent brand presentation is vitally important because companies that do so can increase their revenue by as much as 23%, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. When it comes to independent military surplus/outdoor/tactical businesses, your store is your brand. In this article, I’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of evaluating the current state of your brand and explain how to improve it.

Take a current brand snapshot

The first step of any audit is to take an objective snapshot of your current brand as it is today. Some specific areas to analyze include your values, goals, target audience, key differentiators, and perhaps most importantly, your unique value proposition (UVP). Your UVP is what makes you stand out from other competitors and what makes customers want to choose you over someone else. Having a clear understanding of where you are currently is important because 1) it helps you crystallize things you may not have previously given much thought to and 2) it shows you key areas that need some fleshing out and improving. If, for example, you’ve never pinpointed what your UVP is, now is the perfect time to do so. 

Evaluate your brand presence

Next, it’s time to see how big your current brand is both online and offline. To gauge your brand presence online, you can look at things like website traffic, social media followers and engagement, how well you rank in search engines, the number of customer reviews you have and how frequently you’re mentioned by other brands or media outlets. For offline brand presence, you can look at things like the volume of customer foot traffic your store receives, the visibility of your current signage, local media coverage and the number of local events your company participates in, such as fundraisers. After looking at both your online and offline brand presence, I suggest giving it a score ranging from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) and then deciding what your ideal score would be. For instance, you may currently give your brand presence a 5, but you’d like to ideally get it to an 8.  

Assess customer perception

Another incredibly important aspect of performing a brand audit is determining what your customer base thinks of you. Because customer perception can make or break your brand, you want to have a clear idea of the collective sentiment and identify potential areas for improvement. One of the easiest ways to assess customer perception is to look at reviews found on Google, social networks and review sites. This should provide you with quantitative data (e.g., number of stars with reviews) and qualitative data (e.g., common customer perceptions and experiences). While you can expect the occasional irate customer as well as the occasional die hard brand loyalist, you’ll want to look for overarching trends, as this should provide the big-picture perspective you need to see what the average person thinks about your brand. 

Identify strengths and weaknesses 

Based on your findings up to this point, you’ll want to figure out which areas your brand is thriving in and any specific issues that are holding you back. Say, for example, you’re crystal clear about what your goals are and who your target audience is, but you’ve never officially defined what your unique value proposition is. Working on your UVP would be a top priority. Or, let’s say your brand presence is lacking where you’re not currently getting the customer foot traffic you want and aren’t as visible on social media as you’d like. These would be areas you’d want to focus on in order to increase your brand presence and get more exposure. Whatever the case may be, the point here is that you want to pinpoint exactly what needs the most attention so you can prioritize your improvement efforts, which brings us to our final point. 

Develop an action plan

Once you’ve evaluated the current state of your brand and identified key areas that need your attention, you’ll want to develop what’s called an “action plan” to take concrete steps to get your brand where it needs to be. This involves coming up with specific strategies to achieve your goals so you can get from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible. If, for instance, your UVP wasn’t fully outlined, you would want to spend time brainstorming what your main selling points are and why customers should choose your military surplus/outdoor/tactical store over competitors. From there, you could emphasize your UVP with in-store signage, website copywriting, product promotions and so on. Or, let’s say your current customer perception is less than ideal where you only have a few reviews on Google and social media. You would likely want to focus on encouraging more customers to leave reviews by formally asking for reviews after check-out or offering incentives like discounts. Having an action plan like this should help you zero in on the essentials and provide clear direction as you strive to improve your brand. 

Wrapping up

A DIY brand audit requires a two-pronged approach — objectively assessing where you are currently versus where you want to be and developing an action plan on how to get there based on your findings. While brand improvement isn’t something that happens overnight, following the steps outlined above should put you on the right trajectory.