Do You Have a Strong Brand?
The №1 Brand more customers want above all others and are happy to pay a premium for?
Unlock the expert secrets to enhancing your brand differentiation, increasing your profits, improving your customer acquisition, and preventing costly mistakes with the Persona Design Brand Strength Score Assessment.
Gain valuable feedback in categories such as your target audience, psychology of influence, competitor analysis, market positioning, value proposition, brand differentiation, pricing strategies, brand messaging and communications.
Take the scorecard evaluation now to get your personalised report, so you can propel your business and brand to new levels of success.
Go from good to GREAT
Be The One — The №1 Brand your customers want above all others and are happy to pay a premium for.
Uncover Your Brand’s Strengths and Weaknesses Using The Persona Design Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment
Building a strong brand is the undisputed key to success in today’s business world, and robust brand differentiation is essential for building a powerfully compelling and profitable brand.
The Persona Design Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment has been designed to show decision makers, business leaders, entrepreneurs and SME businesses their organisation’s or business’s brand blind spots; product or service, B2B or B2C, and provide instant, actionable steps on how to improve so you can grow your business faster and more profitably.
Strong, highly profitable brands are about far more than just logos, websites and design — get your brand insights now.
Its free and only takes 4 minutes
Your Brand Will Be Evaluated and Scored Against The Following Key Criteria Using The Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment
Target Audience
How well do you know your different target customers to attract, convert and retain their interest?
Psychology of Influence
What do you know about your customers’ different specific emotional drivers?
Competitor Analysis
What specific details do you know about your key competitors’ strengths and weaknesses?
Market Positioning
How effectively have you identified your brand’s gap in the market and maximised it to your advantage?
Value Proposition
How clear is it to your customers the problems you solve, the benefits you provide and why you’re uniquely better than any of your competitors?
Brand Differentiation
How have you amplified the perceived differences of your brand relative to your competitors from your customers’ perspective?
Pricing Strategies
How do your primary target customers perceive the value of your brand relative to its pricing and that of your competitors?
Messaging & Communications
How does your brand’s signature language perform relative to your competitors to engage your ideal customers on and offline?
How The Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment Works
Answer the Yes/No/Sometimes questions that are based on what we’ve found are common markers for being a strong brand that’s highly profitably; differentiated, trusted, liked and consistently commanding a premium in your industry.
Increase Your Success
Answer the questions, get your personalised brand strength scorecard assessment — use the insights and feedback to make your brand stronger and more profitable
No Cost
Free of charge — no strings attached, done in less than 4 minutes
Clients & Brands
The Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment is Free and Takes Just 4 Minutes
Get your Brand Strength Score and Report that shows you how you can improve across the key brand and business growth driver factors.
“Lorraine Carter has been the catalyst and an inspiration for MGI Learning to clearly define our brand.
Working with Lorraine has been both enlightening and enjoyable. Her blueprint for defining a brand is extremely comprehensive and challenged us to think very deeply about what we offer to our customers and really understand what underpins our success.
Lorraine is extremely knowledgeable, very focused and supportive and leads you through the process and ensured we got maximum benefits from the investment we made.”
Why Are We Giving You This Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment Free?
For the majority of business leaders, owners and decision makers, building a successful brand is complicated, messy and frequently expensive with lots of potential pitfalls and costly mistakes.
Many simply don’t have the essential brand road map needed to grow, strengthen their brand and increase their profits.
The fact is, SMEs in particular are the backbone to our communities worldwide, they are the largest employers, and they bind the fabric of our societies together. The founders and decision makers of these modestly resourced businesses are typically really passionate about what they do and the difference they make, yet, so many work long hours and often never reap the financial rewards they really deserve.
After many frustrating years of seeing thousands of these SME/SMB business owners and decision makers struggle with price fighting, repeatedly making the same common branding mistakes and wasting their precious limited resources we became more determined to find a way for them to be more successful.
This brand evaluation tool, the Persona Design Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment, is one of the ways we make brand building know-how accessible, so you can get some valuable insights enabling you to make your business more successful and have a bigger positive impact in your community at large — so you can go from good to great.
The Persona Design vision is to enable one million small to medium enterprise business leaders, owners and decision makers around the world to develop, build and deploy more successful brands so they can make a bigger positive impact, locally or globally, with stronger self sustaining revenue for themselves, their people, their families, communities at large and for future generations to come — whilst also enjoying greater freedom to live, have, be and do whatever they want in their personal and professional lives through to retirement and beyond. We’d like you to be part of that success.
This is your opportunity to become more successful — to improve your brand strength
As Featured In
Brand Strength FAQs
Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment Frequently Asked Questions
What is brand strength, and why is it important for a business?
Brand strength refers to the effectiveness of a brand’s presence in the market, its recognition, and the positive associations customers have with it and how the brand is perceived relative to its competitors. It’s vital for a businesses because brand strength underpins building trust, differentiating products or services from other competitor options, driving customer loyalty, achieving premium pricing and ultimately, increasing sales and profits.
How can I measure my brand’s strength, and what tools can I use?
Using a tool like the Persona Design Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment is an effective starting point to measure your brand’s strength because the insights provide valuable feedback to identify strengths and weakness so you can make more informed decisions. You can then build on the Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment if you want or need more input to evaluate specific areas in the business through the use of a brand audit.
For example if your leads and sales conversions are falling short, or your profits are down, and you don’t really know the reasons why or your organisation or products/services are changing, or your market has changed, or you need a new brand strategy to drive growth then a brand audit is another valuable tool to measure your brand strength and inform decisions to drive growth.
What mistakes should be avoided that might weaken brand strength?
Common mistakes that can weaken brand strength include a weak or poorly developed and applied brand strategy, inconsistency in messaging, neglecting customer feedback, poor quality products or services, failing to align the brand with the company’s strategic objectives and core values, and not adapting to market changes. These factors together with those listed below will all weaken brand strength:
- Loosing relevance relative to competitors or changing customer preferences will weaken brand strength
- A badly developed or poorly managed launch to market of a new product or service will undermine brand strength
- Inadequate brand strategy development when expanding into new markets nationally or internationally damages brand strength
- A change in your business model misaligned with the brand will also weaken it
- A business merger or acquisition can weaken or strengthen a brand depending on which of the previous two entities becomes the primary driving brand and how the transition is managed
- If customers become, or are confused, because the brand messaging lacks cohesion or consistency it will weaken a brand
- Challenging market conditions can undermine brand strength if the brand lacks a robust brand strategy to drive it through turbulent periods
- Increasing competitor threat can undermine brand strength
- An underperforming team and low morale can weaken brand strength
- If you outgrow your current brand and fail to rebrand or a apply a brand refresh to support the business growth trajectory into the future you will also weaken your brand strength
- Profit erosion e.g. inflation and competing on pricing, features and benefits with no strong compelling differentiators to drive higher premium profit margins also weakens brand strength
- Failing to achieve strategic plans or organisational objectives will also weaken brand strength because both go hand in hand
- Inconsistencies across the business, causing internal and external confusion that results in poor sales results and missed sales targets undermines brand strength
- A lack of key talent in the business to support and develop brand growth will also undermine brand strength
- Being lost in a market because of apparent mediocrity or perceived sameness prevents brand strength from being achieved
- Insufficient understanding of your brand and brand strategy to drive growth at leadership and/or team level undermines brand strength
- Weak customer profiling to inform your business strategy and brand strategy undermines brand strength
- Inconsistent brand assets or brand collateral e.g. website, packaging, videos, social engagement, adverts, presentations, sales scripts, messaging etc. all prevent brand strength from being retained or achieved
- Downsizing or consolidating your business, products or services, without adapting the brand appropriately will also damage brand strength
- Reputation damage, requiring significant brand transformation or a rebrand is one of the biggest factors to weaken brand strength
- Legal problems e.g. copyright infringement damage brand strength
- Lack of a coherent brand strategy to drive growth prevents brand strength from being achieved
By recognising and avoiding these pitfalls, you can maintain and even improve your brand’s strength over time.
How do differentiation, credibility, and likeability relate to brand strength, and how can I optimise them?
Differentiation makes your brand stand out, credibility builds trust, and likeability fosters a positive connection with customers. Optimising these areas involves understanding your target audience, creating a unique value proposition, maintaining authenticity, and engaging with customers in meaningful ways through developing and applying your brand strategy effectively. These elements collectively contribute to brand strength by establishing a distinct and trustworthy brand experience and image that underpins commercial growth.
“For anyone who has a well established business, I would totally recommend working with Persona Design because it will provide them with a new perspective on how to think of their brand. You see in different markets and industries that are overly competitive, what makes the difference is knowing what exactly your business is all about and why people would choose you instead of any other competitor.
What makes you different from all the other service or product providers in the market because that’s what’s going to make your business be the No.1 choice in the range of those specific products or services that you’re providing. Also, that’s what’s going to make your brand stand out and have a long-lasting life and thrive in the context of where you’re operating and delivering value. So totally go for it!
This framework provides you with a lot of insight and more than that, with a systematic process that’s easy for you to understand, easy for you to grasp, easy for you to work with, so you finally nail what makes you different in your business, and what you are about and what those key points are that resonate with your audience.”
What Does Building A Strong Brand Require?
1. Identify and agree your brand’s growth objectives aligned with your strategic plans
Identify and agree your brand’s growth objectives aligned with your strategic plans, so you can achieve your commercial targets. It also entails addressing culture development, employer branding and talent attraction, where needed.
2. Evaluate your current status, so you can establish your brand’s baseline to move forward
Evaluate your current status using a tool like the Persona Design Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment, to get insights on your current status.
You can then consider building on the insights gained by establishing your brand’s baseline further from both an internal and external perspective using a brand audit to more deeply inform decisions — where are you now, where do you want to get to, validate assumptions right or wrong, who is competing in your market, what are your strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for growth. The outputs and recommendations collectively are then used to inform your brand strategy build [whether a new brand, brand revitalisation or rebrand] and implementation plan.
3. Map out your brand as a highly differentiated standout entity to influence customer choice
Map out your brand as a standalone entity, so you can identify and clearly articulate what makes your brand measurably different, distinctive, credible, trustworthy and very desirable, because this enables you to increase your influence and attract your ideal customers consistently — increase your brand strength and grow your profits.
The Persona Brand Building Blueprint™, a proprietary framework, utilises a consultatively facilitated and co-creative process that also entails re-evaluating your positioning and value proposition coupled with productisation (service or product related), so you can maximise on upsells and cross-sells. The outputs are captured, developed and distilled in your Master Brand Strategy document, so you have clear direction, differentiators and messaging frameworks to draw from for your marketing activation and creative design application to drive growth.
4. Develop and apply your brand implementation plan to drive faster more profitable growth
Develop and apply your brand implementation growth plan using your Master Brand Strategy document and Brand Audit insights to provide direction and creative briefs, for application in both your marketing campaigns and brand design execution.
The scope of your Brand Implementation Plan is determined by your strategic objectives, timelines and resources. Your brand project brief, whether marketing campaign or design execution focussed, is an output from your Master Brand Strategy document, and provides the essential direction and application details aligned to your organisational strategy, so your deployments and activations are tightly managed within those contexts.
This avoids the hazards of subjective choices with marketing or design going off track or getting caught up in distracting gimmicks that produce short term or zero results because they’re not ‘on brand’ or aligned with what your brand stands for or fully focussed on your achieving your strategic plan.
It’s important to remember that the quality of your results achieved are dependent on the quality of the outputs from your brand audit and brand strategy, coupled with the resources you choose to leverage and assign to the project.
A great brand strategy or really insightful brand audit is not very useful if it’s not fit for purpose and tailored to your organisation’s size, requirements and resources, i.e. the people and finance you can harness to get the job done.
5. Internalise your brand building capabilities and skills to increase profits consistently
A strong brand consultant is also focussed on preventing problems and inconsistencies before expensive or compromising brand issues arise, so internalising your brand building knowledge and skills through both leadership development, internal team brand working sessions, training, mentoring and brand ambassador up-skilling is also an important part of the brand consultant’s responsibilities when required.
This overall framework ideally includes providing ongoing leadership direction and internal team advisory support to enable you to mitigate vulnerabilities, increase your profitability and grow your sales faster.
Your brand consultant preferably uses an ongoing process that is tracked and measured against agreed milestones, objectives and key performance indicators so that refinements can be implemented where needed fast.
“We participated in the Persona Brand Strategy Leadership Programme online. The 12-week program suited us, as the weekly accountability spurred us on to get work done between sessions.
We found the flow of the course appropriate for the development of the brand through the various areas of the business. Already, we have developed our Customers Personas and our Brand Persona adding value to the business.
The course has helped us make more astute decisions in the business, such as restructuring our product offerings, so we grow more profitable lines and remove those with lower margins.
Lorraine is very helpful and accessible as a tutor, with follow up after each live working session and the half-day masterclass. Most of all, the clarity achieved has been most invaluable.
In the first two weeks of March 2020, before Covid-19 required us to close, we were 300% up in our online sales compared to the whole of March 2019. By the end of May 2020 [after being completely closed for 6 weeks with our 150 staff furloughed] we were back to 69%, and by end of June 2020 back at 108%, January 2021 we were up four-fold on January 2019
— results achieved from applying our brand strategy.”
Got a question? Want to chat with one of the Persona Design brand consultants about your Brand Strength Scorecard Assessment results or need some help with your brand?
We’re happy to chat! Send us a short note and we’ll be in touch.
We do our best to read every message within 48 business hours. We’re kind of obsessive about customer care so if you don’t hear back, that means we didn’t get your message so please do send it again.
Your Persona Design Client Satisfaction Guarantee
- When you work with us, we’ll create a customised brand-building plan and strategy with clear investment for you tailored to your specific requirements and preferences
- You’ll know each step of your brand building journey before we start because we’ll discuss it, document it, and agree on it with you before work commences
- You’ll have timelines, key milestones, and deliverables to evaluate and approve for each stage and part of your brand building process
- Because we know the unexpected sometimes happens we can make adjustments along the way if you need it and if something extra is requested we’ll ensure you’re fully appraised about what that entails before committing
- As we achieve pre-agreed objectives you’ll be able to evaluate your brand building work and strategy in progress, coupled with the outcomes to ensure return on investment
Get in touch today because we’d love to get started helping you build your standout, powerhouse brand, so you can increase your profits and leave your competitors way behind. Email us [email protected] or ring us +35318322724 (GMT 9:00-17:30) and ask about our VIP Brand Strategy Leadership IP.
“I recently organized a large Business Forum for business owners and stakeholders entitled ‘After the Storm – New Business Opportunities’ to highlight the challenges and changing face of doing business in 2013. I was delighted to engage Lorraine Carter to speak at the Forum as I have seen first hand her expertise in Branding and Design.
More importantly I know Lorraine as a Professional Speaker who delivers not only excellent content but is passionate about the positive financial impact of great branding and design.
Lorraine’s talk entitled ‘Brand Your Way Out of Recession’ was extremely well received. Her clarity, eloquence and use of storytelling evoked clear examples of how both big, medium and even small businesses have reached the top with successful use of effective branding and design.
I’d recommend Lorraine as a Speaker at your next event or conference. She is an expert in what she does but more importantly she is an expert who knows how to speak about it!”
“I have had the benefit of working alongside Lorraine Carter with mutual clients and will happily do so again.
Lorraine understands the power of brands for businesses in a way that makes practical sense to businesses. Her dedication to her craft is a great credit to her along with her attention to her clients and the details that matter.
Lorraine understands how to work with people who don’t work with brands on a daily basis and above all Lorraine has a bottom line value orientation. I look forward to continuing working with Lorraine and her team at Persona Branding & Design.”
“The Maguire & Paterson brand was established in 1882 and therefore the rebranding and new packaging had to be managed in a very sensitive and caring manner.
Persona Branding & Design worked very effectively with the M&P management team ensuring that the findings of consumer research were correctly interpreted and factored into the brand revitalization and new range designs. We found their ability to steer us of significant benefit.
Persona Branding & Design also ensured that we kept our focus on core objectives and diplomatically challenged us at various stages on our thought process, ensuring that any brand preferences did not stray from the core objectives.
We would have no hesitation in recommending Persona Branding & Design and we would be very pleased to speak with any potential client(s).”
“Lorraine Carter creates meaningful and immaculately designed brands based on a deep subject matter expertise. She, through Persona Branding & Design, provides a world class professional services for all sized enterprises.
Her understanding of target markets results in memorable and distinctive work that empathises with end customers. Lorraine brings a uniquely positive energy to every meeting that leaves her clients engaged and delighted.
“Lorraine Carter is a true marketing professional. She is highly creative and has delivered impactful, innovative brand solutions for my business for almost a decade.”
“Persona Branding & Design supports our company with an excellent level of creativity in all areas of branding, design and marketing. They listen, understand and interpret our needs perfectly with a formidable proficiency in execution. It is only fair to say that our company expectations of original briefs have always been exceeded.”
“I have worked with Persona Branding & Design for more than 8 years. They have become an invaluable extension of our team, working with us in a flexible, intelligent and pragmatic way.
Once commissioned, they became part of the business extending their expert opinion and brilliant creative solutions in total harmony with our requirements which has achieved great results. This is important since it is often the detail that can make or break a business relationship. Their work philosophy is the best contract a client can hope to receive.”
“Persona Design successfully applied their extensive branding experience from consumer goods directly to an important industrial B2B product range within our organisation. This was pivotal in the formulation of our brand communications strategy which also included design, packaging, point of sale material and brand promotional plan, all of which contributed to a very successful commercial outcome.”
“Lorraine is an excellent start to finish project manager with tremendous creativity and ability to work budgets and timelines effectively.”
“I can’t say enough about the excellent work that Persona Branding & Design has done for us. They didn’t just look at our design requirements but challenged us to really look at the fundamentals of our brand and our target market.
They fully engaged with our team and questioned our thinking, providing strong guidance when needed to keep us all on track. Not only is their work exceptional but it’s an absolute pleasure to work with them too.
The end product has evoked huge comment from customers and buyers alike as to its thought provoking branding, design and uniqueness, thus putting Country Crest into a whole different zone of marketing.”
“Lorraine Carter from Persona Design recently presented at our Dell Social Media Event on the importance of Brand for Corporate and Self. Lorraine provided great tips, many of them thought-provoking from her vast experience in developing brands, as an individual, for customers and the importance of building relationships.
I would highly recommend Lorraine as a trusted advisor on Brand Development and Management.”
“Persona Design has always exceeded the objectives of our briefs. Their level of interaction and creative rigour offering a range of fresh concepts is brilliant.
Apart from being great people to work with, Persona Branding & Design offers an unbeatable combination in their level of service, lateral thinking, attention to detail, strategic focus and commitment to all projects undertaken. They are a key asset within my company and I would be delighted to personally recommend their services.”
“Persona Design are very talented brand consultants and packaging design experts. They are knowledgeable, creative and highly dependable. My company has hired them for a number of projects and we have always been very pleased with the results.
In fact, several of their projects for us have won prestigious awards. I highly recommend Persona Branding & Design.”
“Persona Branding & Design has adroitly managed several of our most important brand design briefs over the past couple of years and in doing so brought a high degree of creativity plus in depth knowledge in dealing with packaging and print suppliers that was vital for the completion of the successful end product.
Their attention to detail and open book costing consistently ensures no surprises on design or origination quotations.”
“I was delighted to be a participant in Lorraine’s Master class on Branding, Packaging and Design. Lorraine has extensive experience is this area and her third party examples of clients she has worked with really drove the message home on the importance of one’s brand and how powerful it can be.
She is passionate in her message and delivers it with conviction. I strongly recommend her as a trainer, speaker in the area of branding, packaging and design as she is truly an expert.”
“Persona Design has worked with Wavin on the creation and development of the new branding and marketing collateral for the launch of a new range of premium products.
They worked closely with our commercial team during this period to deliver a fantastic launch, on time and within budget. I would highly recommend Persona Branding & Design to anyone who is looking for a company that adds value through innovative ideas.”
“Lorraine is a highly experienced and expert marketing professional. That’s just one way of putting it. She is an expert public speaker and her passion for subject matter shines though when she presents on a subject that is obviously close to her heart. Highly professional and credible, she is always looking for the best way to apply her talent for her clients best interest.
Her firm is highly successful in delivering strategic marketing projects for their prestigious client base. I have no hesitation in offering my highest recommendation for Lorraine and her team at Persona Branding & Design”
“Lorraine’s depth of knowledge in branding is immense. I have attended some of her courses and also see first hand the benefits Persona Branding & Design can bring to a business. I am always happy to recommend Lorraine.”
“I have known of Lorraine’s high quality work for a number of years and in late 2008 I finally had the opportunity to work with her in developing a brand and marketing strategy for an upcoming awards ceremony.
Lorraine patiently guided the team through the process and was excellent in identifying the nuances, do’s and don’ts of our target market. We started out thinking a brand was just a logo but now know better!
Before this however, Lorraine had sat down for coffee on an number of occasions with my colleague and I on a different venture and was very generous with her time and sharing her knowledge. I aim to call on Lorraine many times in the future and look forward to it.”
“I’d be happy to recommend Lorraine Carter and her company, Persona Branding & Design, to any client who wants an enthusiastic and passionate business partner to produce compelling brands built on a sound strategy.”
“Lorraine is both highly creative and strategic. Her professional and flexible approach combined with her attention to detail resulted in exceptional work which perfectly met the clients needs. A pleasure to work with. I’d happily recommend her for any brand project!”
About
Persona Branding & Design Consultants
Contact: Lorraine Carter
T: +353 1 832 2724
Carra House
Howth, Co. Dublin, Ireland
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