If you’re thinking about refreshing your brand, getting feedback from other people can be really useful. You can ask past and current customers specific questions about how they view your brand. You can even ask potential customers. In fact, if your ideal customer has evolved, asking potential customers could give you really valuable feedback when it comes to your brand strategy.
Just keep in mind that you don’t have to implement all the suggestions. This is your business, and you ultimately get to decide what’s right for you. One way to ensure you’re not excessively influenced by outside opinions is to revisit your brand values. What does your brand stand for? If you haven’t thought about this before, we have another blog post about brand values you can read here.
Another thing to keep in mind: while some of the feedback might be hard to hear, it’s better to know the truth. If you get consistent feedback that your brand is not giving the impression you thought it would, it probably won’t feel good. But you can still learn from it. Notice any trends that come up, and really think about how you want your ideal customers to perceive you. Incorporate the things that will make your brand more appealing and that also make sense to you.
How to Use Feedback to Improve your Brand Strategy
How to Approach People for Feedback
If you have some loyal customers, they’d probably be happy to help you. Try to think of 3-5 people you could survey. If you can’t think of 3-5 people you absolutely know would be willing to help, consider offering a small value gift card or coupon in exchange for feedback. If you don’t have any customers yet, you can network with potential customers on social media platforms and do market research calls. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to find other business owners willing to help with things like this!
Try to keep all your feedback organized in the same place so you can spot trends. We’ve created a free DIY Brand Audit Workbook that has a section just for this. The workbook also includes some questions to ask people. Here is a sample of the questions in the workbook:
- What problem does this business solve?
- Based on the brand, website, and marketing efforts, what promise does this business seem to be making?
- How is this brand different from others in the industry?
How to Implement the Feedback
Let’s say you got some surprising or noteworthy answers to the questions above. Do people think your business is making a different promise than what you think it’s making? If any of this is based on your visual presentation, you can edit or update your branding to reflect the real promise you’re trying to make.
Learning what sets you apart in your industry and what problem people think you solve can be really useful in your written messaging. Do any words come up repeatedly? For example, if multiple people described your business as more modern than similar businesses, it would be smart to use the word “modern” somewhere in your messaging. If you know that’s what makes you stand out to people, and it’s an accurate description, then using it in your messaging is likely to attract the right people.
You might go through this process and feel that there are a lot of changes to implement. It may seem overwhelming or like something you just don’t have the time for. If you’re in a place to invest in professional branding, it really can help set you apart from the competition and attract more of those ideal customers.
We love to help people refresh or create new branding! If you’re not sure if you’re ready for professional branding, consider signing up for our free DIY Brand Audit Workbook. There are six other sections to help you identify what might need editing or updating in your brand. You can sign up for it here, along with our monthly newsletter where we share more resources. And if you want even more information or inspiration from us, be sure to follow us here on Instagram.
Do you have any questions we didn’t answer in this post about how to use feedback to improve your brand strategy? Let us know in a comment below!
