Course Outline
Laying the Foundations
- Defining brand, brand marketing, brand identity, brand perception, and brand reputation.
- The relationship between brand strength and a business’s bottom line.
The Power of an Online Brand Audit
- What is a brand’s digital footprint and why is it critical for business health today?
- How the sum of multiple touch points ultimately shapes a brand’s image and perception.
- When to conduct an online brand audit.
- The importance of routinely conducting Online Brand Audits.
- The Online Brand Audit Framework and what to expect.
Business Overview & Alignment
- Establishing baseline metrics and identifying the business's current priorities, goals, and any micro/macro factors impacting the business as a whole.
- Outlining the Brand Audit's objectives to ensure the framework has clear direction.
Evaluation of Online Assets
- Evaluating a brand’s owned online channels for strengths and weaknesses to understand how a business’s controlled online brand presence is perceived by customers.
- How a brand’s own communications can either harm or help brand image.
- A universal checklist of what all businesses should look for when evaluating online assets.
Online Reputation Audit
- SEO audit: A significant part of any brand’s online reputation is its ranking by search engines.
- How SEO can be evaluated and optimized today.
- How AI has changed SEO.
- The old and new SEO guidelines.
- Online Mentions: The quantitative and qualitative data that uncovers a brand's true reputation and image.
- Discovering how target audiences and anonymous users speak about a brand online through social listening.
- Web Analytics: An analysis of the metrics that sustain an online business.
- Diagnosing and identifying what confuses customers versus what increases engagement by examining key website metrics: traffic, bounce rate, page views, and conversion rates.
Competitive Analysis
- Defining the industry.
- Industry trends, projections, and key players.
- List of competitors.
- Perceptual map: Visually mapping out where a brand stands within a competitive landscape in terms of brand perception.
- Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the brand’s positioning compared to competitors.
Brand Strategy and Tactics
- Determine the brand’s desired positioning.
- Develop Brand Marketing Objectives.
- Design a concluding Brand Strategy directly informed by the audit’s results.
- Develop an Integrated Marketing Communication plan to drive results.
- Develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and a tracking system to evaluate progress and success.
When to Use AI in an Online Brand Audit
- Three areas where professionals can utilize AI in the auditing process for efficiency.
- Three areas to avoid using AI when conducting an online brand audit.
Requirements
- A foundational understanding of marketing principles and terminology.
This course is relevant for teams or professionals who are:
- Considering a rebrand.
- Looking to reposition or strengthen an existing brand positioning.
- Expanding into a new market or vertical.
- Aiming to reach new target audiences and customer segments.
- Seeking to create brand strategies that better align with wider business objectives.
- Aiming to build a more competitive brand.
- Experiencing a decline in brand and marketing performance.
- Facing damage to brand name reputation or image, or wishing to refine brand image.
- Wanting to diagnose problem areas in brand management.
- Needing to update marketing materials.
- Dealing with inconsistent brand elements such as messaging, language, visuals, design, tone, etc.
Audience
- Marketing managers.
- Marketing strategists.
- Brand strategists.
- Marketing decision-makers.
- Marketing professionals in any capacity.
- Design and creative teams (secondary audience).
Testimonials (2)
Irma was attuned to us as learners and our business needs. It was clear that she was actively listening to us from the informed feedback she then provided.
Siobhan - Raintree
Course - Digital Marketing for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Found the entire two days of training very informative and educational, but the content covered on Day 2 (Social Media & Mobile Marketing, Analytics, as well as Strategy & Planning) was the most valuable to me as it relates directly to my current line of work.