If your visuals don’t feel aligned, your messaging isn’t landing, or you’re just not showing up consistently- and you know it has something to do with your overall brand- this episode is for you.
This content is coming out at the turn of a year (around December/January), which makes it the perfect time to do a check-in on your brand, where it’s at, and what’s going on. But honestly? This audit is valuable any time of year.
Today, we’re rolling up our sleeves and walking through a brand audit you can complete in just about an hour. And just so you know, everything I’m covering today can also be done by taking my Brand Audit Quiz, which is totally free.
The quiz is a little faster than this one-hour framework, but it follows the same structure I’m breaking down today. So you can listen now and come back to the quiz later, or vice versa.
By the end of this episode, you should know:
- Where your brand is really strong
- Where it might need attention
- What to prioritize next
Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Clarity and Messaging
The heart of a brand is clarity– knowing exactly what your brand is all about. If you don’t feel like you’re your own brand expert and you have clarity on your brand, that’s where you need to start.
Here are some brutally honest questions you can ask yourself:
Question 1: Does your audience know exactly who you serve- and do YOU know who your audience is?
I want you to be more specific than “I serve women in their 50s through this product.”
Demographics help with placement, SEO, and ad targeting. But they’re not helping you get to the root of serving your people. Psychographics are what really impact that- where they’re hanging out, what their interests are, what their values are, and which of those overlap with your product or service.
Question 2: Do they know what problem you solve?
Is it really clear in your content what problem your product or service solves? And I mean across multiple places- not just your website.
Your website should be stellar and clear (ideally with the help of a copywriter or professional), but that clarity needs to translate into your social posts, email marketing, and everywhere else you show up.
Question 3: Do they understand the transformation you’re offering?
If your audience is problem-aware, that’s great. But are they aware of what happens in the end?
Beyond fixing the problem and offering the solution, pretty much all brands have to take it one step further and get to the deeply rooted desire– the thing they didn’t even know they needed or wanted.
This is where the Brand Transformation Story (also known as the Marketing Loop) comes in.
Here’s how it works:
- External Needs/Wants: These are the things clients say in their initial inquiry form. “I need a new website.” These are what people search for.
- Internal Feelings: How do they feel when it comes to that need or want? For my clients, they often feel frustrated with an outdated website, invisible, like no one can find them. It leads to feeling not confident, not legit, down on their business.
- Deeply Rooted Desire: This is the transformation. It’s what you’re getting them to beyond solving the surface problem. It’s the thing they didn’t even know they needed.
Your job in your clarity of messaging is to say: “I can meet that need and want, I can validate your feelings and get you to the positive outcome, AND I’m going to get you to this deeply rooted desire you didn’t even know you had.”
That’s the transformation. And it’s super powerful when you know it because you can infuse it into all of your marketing and content.
The test for you: If someone lands on your website or Instagram, can they figure out all three of those things in 10 seconds or less? Can they scroll through a couple of carousels or look at your service page and understand it?
If not, you don’t have clarity in messaging.
And that’s where you’ve got to start.
This is the number one area I see brands struggle. And it’s not that they don’t do incredible work or create incredible products. It’s that it’s buried in vague words like “we help you thrive” or “we empower you to live your best life.”
Here are some examples of clear messaging:
- “I help designers book more dream clients by teaching them value-based pricing.”
- “I style professionals so they can show up with confidence on stage.”
Those are super specific. We know exactly what the end result is, even in one sentence.
If you feel really foggy here, this is your first signal that you need to go back to this place.
Why this section gets missed:
A lot of brands are missing this piece because they’re skipping brand strategy or they’re working with a designer who doesn’t offer messaging as part of brand strategy.
In my brand strategy framework (which I have a whole episode on- “Steal My Brand Strategy Framework”), there’s an audience section and a messaging section. By having audience and messaging, not just identity, you create the clarity and messaging foundation that’s so important for future marketing.
Now, will that evolve and shift as your brand grows? Yes, of course. But a lot of strategists approach strategy by just doing an identity portion (personality traits, values, mission, vision). And while that’s important for people internally, it doesn’t help with the most important part of driving revenue and sales leads: your marketing.
Your strategy has to feed into that. And to feed into marketing, it needs audience and messaging.
If that’s never been done for you, that’s where you’re going to start.
Step 2: Visual Identity and Design
This is what your audience sees before they start to read your words.
You might be thinking, “Well, shouldn’t I focus on visuals first and then go back to the words?” No. The words need to make sense before the visuals. The visuals flow with it, impact it, lift it up. Obviously, it’s the first thing people see. But you’ve got to know your people before you can build what they’re going to resonate with visually.
Have your social feed or website open while you answer these questions:
Question 1: Are my fonts, colors, and photography consistent across all platforms?
Even if you’re mixing brand photography with stock photos, do you have a stock photo library that’s on brand? Or are you just picking from Canva photos every time?
Are you changing fonts all the time because something else is cute? Are you changing colors because you saw something you liked on a friend’s site?
If you don’t have consistency with your brand, you’re missing out on building trust. Consistent brands build trust. And consistent brands have 33-50% higher revenue than brands who aren’t consistent. There’s a reason to do it.
So look across all your platforms. Are you staying consistent, or is there a lack of consistency?
And if there’s a lack of consistency, is it because you haven’t communicated clear visual brand guidelines? Hex codes for your color palette? A font system? A stock photo library and brand photo library?
Especially if you have a team implementing, if they don’t have clear guidelines, they’re just doing their best. But that’s where you’ll see inconsistency.
Question 2: Do the visuals reflect your brand values and brand personality?
When you look at everything, how does it feel?
This is a question I ask my clients in their onboarding form: “If you could describe your brand to a friend, how would you describe it? If someone lands on your website, how should they feel?”
Are they going to feel warm, grounded, welcomed? Is it friendly, vibrant, eclectic? Is it minimal, simple, easy?
If that isn’t computing with the visuals, they’re probably not aligned.
Not everyone can necessarily see this right away- you need to train your eye a bit. If you have ideal clients, you could ask them. But this is also where an expert (like myself) comes in to look at these things and see whether it’s connecting or not.
Question 3: Does everything look like it belongs to the same brand, or does it look like patchwork?
This patchwork symptom is something I see a lot with brands who started as DIY and grew pretty quickly but didn’t take the time to come back and invest in a rebrand or redesign.
I also see this in brands who have grown over 5-10 years. They did an initial branding project, but since then have had all kinds of team members add things on. Now it looks patchy and not cohesive. You have 22 drop-downs (something I’ve literally seen) instead of a clear, clean site map.
Does it look like it all belongs, or is it kind of patched together? And if it’s patched together, what parts do you think are working or not?
Your visuals are not decoration.
They’re the body language of your brand.
If your messaging says “we’re professional and sophisticated” but all your graphics scream “DIY Canva,” there’s a big disconnect happening.
People will trust you less if your visuals are inconsistent. It’s statistically proven.
If you’re wincing right now because you know this is true, visuals are next in your audit project. And if you feel like both your clarity/messaging AND visuals are misaligned, you need a full rebrand. It is time.
Step 3: Voice and Personality
This is another section that gets missed in a lot of brand strategy approaches, but it’s so important.
When answering these questions, look at your last three Instagram captions, your About page, and an email welcome sequence.
Question 1: Do they sound like the same “person”?
Even if you have a company, you should have a face of your company or brand- even if it’s a lifestyle-type face.
Do they sound like the same person or face for your brand?
Question 2: Do they sound authentic to your company or to you (if you are your company)?
Or does it sound a little too much like ChatGPT? Are you seeing those phrases repeated? Is it just kind of slop with nothing cohesive?
Question 3: Would your best friend (or the best friend of your brand) recognize your voice in copy?
If you answer no to that, there’s something happening with the brand voice that needs looking at.
This is an overlooked brand element because your voice is where your brand becomes human. It’s how people feel you in a whole other way.
No one section is more important than the other- they all have to work together. But it’s important that you take time in each of these areas.
Quick example:
Let’s say your brand archetype is the Explorer. Your voice should sound bold, adventurous, maybe a little playful.
But if your captions are reading like a legal brief- or if you put your caption through a grade checker and it’s reading at ninth grade and above- something’s off.
It’s time to change your brand voice and language to reflect your actual brand identity.
Action Step:
Choose 2-3 voice traits, stick with them, and build that consistency and trust.
If you’ve never built your voice traits, they come from your brand personality and knowing your brand identity. That’s part of the brand strategy process.
Step 4: Audience and Offer Alignment
This is a really practical section. Your brand isn’t really doing anything without the people it serves, right? So let’s talk about offers and offer alignment.
Question 1: For your offers or products, is it crystal clear?
If it’s a product:
Do we know what it does, how it works, what’s special about it, and what makes it different- right away?
If it’s a service:
Do we know those same things? Do we know the process?
Question 2: Do they match what your audience is actually asking for?
This part of the audit takes a little more time. Look at:
- Frequently asked questions on social posts, YouTube videos, or wherever you’re sharing
- Your reviews and what people said they needed at the beginning
Do your offers reflect that?
Question 3: Is your packaging and pricing aligned with the needs and expectations of your audience?
This becomes really murky for brands if they’re trying to:
- Pivot or break into a new market (including a luxury market)
- Add things on- and now have so many packages it’s overwhelming
I see a lot of entrepreneurs create offers and products that are really brilliant but totally misaligned for their audiences.
You don’t want to throw a dinner party and serve terrible food. You want to serve something people are ordering.
Make sure your offers connect with the people you want to reach and meet their needs and expectations.
If you’ve been hearing crickets on a launch, that’s usually a red flag that offers aren’t put together in a way that makes sense for your people.
If this feels like a big gap, go back and listen to my Market Research episode because that’s going to help you fill in the blanks on offers and building structure there.
Step 5: Visibility and Experience
This is the very last section of the audit: visibility and customer/client experience.
This is where it gets really real because your brand shouldn’t only be what people see on Instagram. It’s how they experience it at all the touchpoints.
Here are some things to do in this part of the audit:
1. Google yourself. Do you like what comes up?
This is important for visibility and seeing what it looks like at different touchpoints.
2. Is your SEO in place?
Titles, meta descriptions, alt text- so you can be found when people are Googling.
SEO is a whole other thing and I’m just touching on it here. But if you’ve done no SEO at all- nothing’s optimized, you don’t have an SEO strategy- that should be a big priority for visibility.
Especially because everyone’s like, “I want to be found by AI.” Well, AI scrapes Google. If you’re not ranking on Google and clear about that, you’re not going to be found on AI.
3. Is your posting consistent?
Did you last post “Happy New Year” six months ago? What’s happening in terms of marketing consistency?
Everyone can market in a different way. Maybe your email list is where you consistently market- amazing. Maybe it’s Instagram, maybe it’s YouTube. Whatever your platform of choice is, is it happening consistently or sporadically?
4. What happens when someone buys your product or books you?
This is the big one that goes to customer or client experience.
If you have a product:
- When they add it to cart, do you have abandoned cart emails set up?
- Do you have a way to nurture them after they’ve purchased?
- What does packaging and delivery look like?
- Are you updating them on the product?
- Are you asking for reviews afterward?
If you have a service-based business:
- Do clients get a seamless, on-brand process?
- Or are they getting a PDF to sign attached to your email?
- Is it a janky invoice situation?
What does it look like when someone books you? This is all about the process.
I have some really good interviews with process and system experts that would be helpful if you’re seeing this as an area where you don’t have anything set up for flow or SOPs.
This section is big because:
- Visibility builds credibility
- Consistency builds trust
- Your systems (invoicing, onboarding emails) should feel just as on-brand as everything else
This part reveals hidden leaks in the brand and can really help increase revenue when needed.
Your Next Move
Let’s quickly recap. You can run a brand audit by looking at your five zones:
- Clarity and Messaging
- Visual Identity
- Voice and Personality
- Audience and Offers
- Visibility and Experience
Now, it’s not your job to fix all of these today. Your job is to look at your notes, take the quiz if you want to compare your findings, and then take action steps based on what you found.
Your brand is not static- it grows with you. This is your one-hour checkup and chance to make sure it’s healthy, aligned, and moving in the right direction.
If you’re like, “Okay, whoa, all of these things need rework,” here’s what I want you to know:
- We specialize in sections 1-3 (clarity, visuals, voice). And you can have further support with me through mentorship if sections 4-5 (offers and marketing) are really hard for you as well.
- You can outsource some of these things if you’re seeing them as big gaps and make that part of your budget for this year or the coming quarter.
I’d love to hear from you. If this episode helped you, share it with a friend, screenshot it, tag me. I want to see what part of your brand audit you’re doing first!
Don’t forget to take the Brand Audit Quiz and subscribe to the podcast so you never miss another episode. I’ll catch you next time!
