Building a Strong Brand: Key Insights from a Speed Branding Audit of Small Business Owners
Discover What 121 Hungarian Small Business Owners Reveal Their Branding Priorities and Development Opportunities
8 minutes
Summary – Numbers in a Nutshell
My speed branding audit reveals several key findings that highlight both strengths and development opportunities across small businesses:
- 44% of respondents, regardless of experience level, don't do market research or competitive analysis in a written form, with only approx. 15% actively doing these things, 38-41% partly have something in this topic. There are a bit better, however still similar numbers regarding written defined target audience.
- Avg. 65% lack a documented communication strategy , whether they are newcomers or seasoned professionals, 20% have put together this doc. There are similar insights on annual planning, goal setting and metrics tracking.
- ‘Tangible’ visual parts of brand development like logo and design elements are widely developed (avg. 70% have logo and 60% completely or partly covered the brand book).
- Messages like ‘easily understandable’ mission and vision are formulated for both beginner and advanced entrepreneurs (40-50% ‘yes’ answer), while the rest of key messages like value proposition, distinguishing or credibility points are notably absent or only partly defined (more than 60% ‘no’ or ‘so-so’ answer).
These insights illustrate that small business take branding into consideration and cover some of its steps, elements, but only partially. Probably education is needed either to help them understand why it is important to have for instance strategical planning or to help them know how to get started. Read more to see what other important results and lessons found out from the free speed branding audit.
Speed Branding Audit Background and Methodology
Through 20 or 27 questions (depending on whether they are beginners or more advanced entrepreneurs), participants could audit themselves to assess where they stand on the path to building a strong brand, using my methodology in an online survey. The responses provide insights into the branding practices of 121 Hungarian small business owners. These participants were split into two categories based on how long they’ve been operating in the market:
- beginners (maximum 2 years on the market)
- and more experienced entrepreneurs (at least 3 years on the market)
The branding audit itself was conducted through an online questionnaire that respondents could complete after subscribing to the study free of charge. The survey was designed using my proprietary methodology centered around my principles of building a strong brand, as defined by three core characteristics:
- Purposeful (Focus): Strong brands are intentional and have a clear focus.
- Authentic (Consistency): They remain true to their values and maintain consistent messaging and actions.
- Resilient (Sustainable Efficiency): They balance flexibility and stability, ensuring long-term results.
Respondents were asked to assess their brand building practices with three response options: yes, no, and so-so (indicating partial implementation or inconsistency). The questions were tailored to evaluate how well small businesses align with these brand building attributes through their strategic planning, brand identity development, and communication practices.
This initial free speed branding audit project is just the beginning; a follow-up phase in the autumn will expand the sample size to validate and deepen these insights.
This campaign was running in Hungary. While I’m fully aware that 121 participants represent a small sample size, it still provides a solid starting point and an informative snapshot. My goal is to make this free speed branding audit accessible to as many small business owners as possible thus helping them explore the specific steps on building a strong brand, so it will continue to be available, allowing for a larger sample size in the future. The current results come from a 2-3 week campaign run on a bare minimum budget, making the findings even more valuable as a reflection of broader trends. Even at this early stage, the findings offer valuable direction for small business owners seeking to strengthen their brand building efforts.
(HUN speed branding audit available via this page, ENG version via this site.)
Key Findings and Analysis
1. Market Research and Competitor Analysis
Across the board, only a small percentage of businesses prioritize thorough market research. Among both beginners and more experienced entrepreneurs, 44% do not engage in market analysis. Only 13.9% of beginners and 16.7% of experienced respondents have conducted such research in a written documented manner. Nearly 40% just partially cover this topic.
For those experienced business owners who have done this research, it’s encouraging to see that 91.3% of them review and update their findings every 1-1.5 years. However, considering that less than one-fifth of these businesses have a documented market analysis, there’s still a critical gap in leveraging market knowledge for strategic decision-making.
2. Target Audience and Buyer Personas
Defining in writing a clear target audience is a crucial step in any marketing strategy. Yet, the audit found that avg. 33% of respondents, irrespective of their experience, either do not have in writing a buyer persona or target group description, or only partly have covered this topic. But what is good news, avg. 33,5% have developed detailed audience profiles (in case of beginners this number is 24%, while in vase of advanced small business owners this number is 43%).
3. Communication Strategy and Planning
The results show an important element in how businesses approach communication strategy. Both beginners and advanced entrepreneurs lacking it which is necessary for consistent and effective branding. A documented communication strategy is vital for guiding marketing and PR activities, ensuring alignment with overall business goals, and maintaining a coherent brand. However, the data shows that most businesses struggle in this area, regardless of experience level.
Beginners:
- 68.4% do not have a written communication strategy. Only 12.7% have taken the step to develop their strategy.
- 74.7% have not aligned their marketing and PR strategies with their broader business objectives, resulting in fragmented communication.
- Most of them (81%) lack any form of scheduled, budgeted, or resource-driven marketing-PR plan, while only 6.3% have these foundational plans in place.
Advanced entrepreneurs:
- 61.9% also lack a formal communication strategy, indicating this issue persists even as businesses mature. Only 14.3% have created a documented plan.
- 59.5% have not integrated their communication strategy with their overall business strategy.
- Notably, those who do have a strategy tend to maintain and update it regularly, with 85.7% reviewing it every 1-1.5 years.
Across both groups, there is a consistent lack of measurable goals and regular reviews:
- For beginners, 67.1% have not defined specific targets for their marketing-PR efforts, and 75.9% do not revisit or refine their plans on a monthly basis.
- For advanced entrepreneurs, the numbers are slightly better, but there remains a significant gap in regular strategic updates and measurable outcomes.
4. Brand identity with Messaging and Communication Style
The speed branding audit reveals a surprising fact on value proposition: Specifically, around 40% of beginners have articulated their value proposition, while this figure drops to about one-third for those longer on the market. As for beginners this number is quite encouraging, but regarding experienced small businesses this result is not very positive. Although ‘so-so’ answers are 28,5%, this statement should be consciously formulated for a business with 3+ years experience.
When it comes to the rest of key messages – such as problem-solving points, customer benefits, and differentiators – beginners show significant gaps. Only a small portion have fully defined their messages (17,7%), with most falling into a partially clear “so-so” category (41,8%) or not having any defined at all (40,5%). This pattern extends to their brand communication style and tone, where only a minority have clear guidelines, and consistent application remains a major challenge.
Interestingly, experienced businesses follow a similar pattern, though they tend to update their value propositions and messaging more regularly, if they have already defined them. Even for these more seasoned entrepreneurs, consistency and clarity in their brand communication are challenging, 35% have consistent messaging in practice and also one third said that partly could meet this.
Overall, the data highlights that regardless of experience level, avg. 34% of small businesses lack a clear and consistently applied value proposition, other key messages, and brand identity with right communication style and tone of voice.
5. Visual Branding
While strategic planning is often overlooked, visual branding is not. The speed branding audit shows that 78% of advanced businesses have a logo and 40,5% developed a consistent visual brand identity (brand book), including design elements and guidelines. In case of fresh business numbers are a bit lower with few percents, but still high. However, only 33% of these businesses use their brand book’s rules consistently across all platforms, so also in visual areas consistency is a challenge.
Key Recommendations for Building a Strong Brand
The data highlights the need for small businesses to go beyond visuals and focus on strategic brand building. Here are some actionable steps:
- Prioritize Market Research and Competitor Analysis: A solid understanding of your market and competitors should be foundational. It helps you properly position and differentiate your brand, and regular updates to your market data can offer new opportunities and prevent costly missteps.
- Develop Target Group Descriptions: Knowing your audience is key to be able to solve their problems with your product or service, to be able to communicate towards them in the most resonating way, and to be able to reach and engage them. So, invest time in creating detailed descriptions that can guide all your marketing efforts.
- Document Everything in a Strategy: By keeping a close eye on market conditions, competitors and target groups, summarize your positioning, goals and directions in a strategical document. Align your communication goals (regardless PR or marketing communication) to your business goals, develop your strategical directions and your communication mix according to your business interests. This helps bring everything together into a clear, comprehensive picture that’s lasting, trackable, can be broken down into sub-plans, and easy to revisit as your business evolves.
- Define Your Brand Identity: Even if your brand looks professional, inconsistency can erode trust. Define your key messages, tone of voice, and style guidelines, and specify your “DOs and DON’Ts” rules on how they have to be consistently applied.
- Plan and Measure Your Efforts: Set clear annual goals and track key performance indicators (KPIs) regularly. Even simple monthly reviews can reveal valuable insights.
- Ensure Smooth Operation and Brand Consistency: Once above steps completed and everything is documented, share them with everyone involved into the business and brand to ensure the same brand impression, communication and action across all touchpoints. Consistency is crucial for building brand recognition and trust.
Conclusion
My free speed branding underscores an imbalance in how businesses approach branding and strategy. While visual aspects and some messaging elements get focus, essential strategic elements like planning, goal setting and metrics tracking are often overlooked. This result might be related to the misconception that branding is only about visual appearance. The other possible answer is that strategical steps might seem too complex for small business owners, they don’t know how to get started. Another option might be a misconception again: they may think that a certain level of planning, systems, processes, etc. is not necessary for their size or actual life cycle. Regardless of what is the reason behind these insights, education is necessary either to help them understand why it is important to have a focus on gap areas or to help them know how to do all of them step-by-step.
Rember, whether you’re just starting or have been in business for years, building a strong brand requires aligning visual identity with clear, consistent messaging backed by strategic planning and execution.
This was just the first phase. My goal is to make this free speed branding audit accessible to as many small business owners as possible thus helping them explore the specific steps on building a strong brand. So, a more comprehensive follow-up planned for the autumn to reach a larger part of small businesses and also get larger sample size and deeper insights.
Do you want to build a strong brand and take your business to the next level? Sign up to my newsletter for further insights, know-how and inspiration or contact me to discuss how I can help you achieve your goals.
