1. Define your goals 

Before diving in, it’s important to understand the “why” behind your brand audit. Are you trying to improve brand trust, clean up inconsistencies, or prepare for a rebrand? Defining clear goals will help you focus your efforts. 

2. Gather data 

Now it’s time to collect the data. This is where you get a clear picture of how your brand is performing. You’ll need to look at several key areas and gather relevant data from each: 

Visual identity

This includes all the design elements that represent your brand—things like your logo, color palette, typography, and imagery. The key data points here are:

• Brand guidelines  
• Examples of your branding across digital and physical touchpoints (website, social media, brochures, emails) 
• User feedback on design consistency, either through surveys or team feedback 

Employee feedback

Your employees are the face of your brand internally, and their insights are crucial. You want to understand how well they align with the brand’s values and how consistently they communicate it. To gather this data, you can look at:

• Internal surveys or focus groups 
• One-on-one interviews with employees 
• Feedback on internal communications (emails, intranet, etc.) 
• Observing how they use branded assets in day-to-day work (templates, presentations, etc.) 

Customer reviews

This is the pulse of your brand externally—how customers feel about your company and its products. Data sources for this include:

• Online reviews and ratings (on platforms like Google, Yelp, Trustpilot) 
• Direct feedback from customers (via surveys, emails, or social media comments) 
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) data, which measures customer satisfaction 
• Social listening tools to track sentiment across social media 
• Customer satisfaction surveys 

Marketing performance

You’ll want to see how your marketing materials are performing across various channels. Data points to focus on include:

• Website analytics (e.g. traffic, bounce rate, conversion rates) 
• Performance data from email campaigns (open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates) 
• Social media engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments, followers) 
• Ad performance data (click-through rates, conversions) 
• Lead generation and sales statistics from marketing campaigns 
• A/B test results from landing pages or email campaigns

3. Analyze results 

Now that you’ve gathered all the data, it’s time to analyze it. Look for patterns and gaps. Assess where your brand is excelling and where it needs improvement. Perhaps your web content is consistent and on-brand, but your client-facing documents are full of errors and outdated visuals.  

4. Develop solutions 

Once you’ve spotted the inconsistencies, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Here are some common fixes for the issues that often arise during a brand audit.  

• Centralize assets: You want all your brand materials (like logos, templates, photos, etc.) to be in one place. This helps everyone in the company quickly access what they need without searching through endless folders or, worse, using outdated content. 
• Update templates: If your templates are out of date (we’ve all been there), it’s time to refresh them. Make sure they reflect your current branding and standards. 
• Standardize workflows: Everyone on your team should be using the same processes when it comes to creating brand materials. Put a consistent review process in place for anything that gets published, so you can avoid sending out off-brand documents. 

5. Monitor progress 

Brands evolve. You need to check in regularly to see how things are going. Is everything still aligned? Are there any new gaps or areas for improvement? 

• Continued evaluation: Don’t wait for a big crisis to reassess your brand. Set up regular check-ins (quarterly or yearly) to ensure your brand is still performing as expected.  
• Feedback loops: Always keep an ear to the ground. Create opportunities for feedback from employees and customers and use that information to adjust and improve.  

Centralize brand assets for compliant document creation

All your logos, templates, and approved content live in one central location, so your teams always have access to up-to-date, brand-approved materials. With direct access to templates for presentations, documents, spreadsheets, and emails, the risk of using outdated files or inconsistent content is minimized. 

Automate compliance checks

Templafy’s built-in QA tools, such as automated clean-up and Check for PowerPoint, catch errors like incorrect corporate terminology, typos, and formatting issues before your documents fly the nest. Plus, Templafy removes any metadata or internal notes, ensuring your content stays compliant and secure.

Create tailored, branded templates for every touchpoint

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Templafy simplifies document creation with smart templates that automatically adapt to user profile information. All templates come branded with your corporate identity, so your teams can easily create consistent, high-quality content at every stage of the client journey.

Automate content directly within the tools you already use

Templafy is directly embedded within tools like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook, so your teams can access and create high-quality content from the tools they’re already using. All the tools your team needs are right where they already work.