Bioresearch organizations grow and evolve over time, and their brands naturally evolve with them. To maximize your brand’s influence in the marketplace, your internal marketing or communications team will want to keep a tight reign over the process by conducting a communications audit regularly. Doing so will prevent your brand from evolving in ways you don’t intend, and it will help ensure all of arms of your organization, from sales to marketing to the lab, are embracing the same core values.

Managing your brand’s evolution is a process in and of itself. Your ability to steer your Biomedical, BioPharma or Life Science brand where you want it to go depends entirely on knowing where it’s been. Doing a Marketing Communications Audit is the first step in plotting your course forward.

A Communications Audit is a comprehensive assessment of your brand’s positioning, messaging, and meaning. The goal is to objectively look at the impressions your brand is making (or has made in the past), and decide how your marketing or communications group might want to change that impression going forward to help build revenue, gain donors or create new connections.

Tips for Performing an Effective Marketing Communications Audit on Your Bioresearch Brand:

Create a Timeline

Depending on the age of your organization, it may not be possible—or even helpful—to look at every marketing communication or message ever created for it. Decide up front how large of a window you will need to accurately capture your brand’s recent growth.

As a guide, create a timeline and record any landmark shifts in the way you do business. Those shifts, however organic they may seem at the time, can create fault lines in your brand. That makes them the ideal place to begin your audit. You may decide to look back over your communications for the past six months, a year or even three years. What you are looking for is gradual changes in how and what you are communicating, and any disconnects that may have impacted your core brand.

Be Thorough

Once you know how far back you want to look, pull every communication you can from your media archives, website and social media files. Pull all of those files, including visuals and messaging, into one large document, so you can see the full breadth of your marketing communications assets side by side. Looking at the scope of your organization’s work in this way can give you the 100-foot view you need to see inconsistencies and outdated ideas.

Consider Key Audiences Individually

Bioresearch brands often have multiple audiences–from researchers and scientific partners to investors and donors–and each has a unique relationship with your bioresearch brand. Inventory your buyer personas and consider how well you have incorporated their perspective in your communications. Getting support for your science is a matter of building trust, especially when it comes to sharing the value of your research with non-scientific influencers such as media and investors.

Assess Your Brand’s Evolution

This is the point at which you can pull your team, and your marketing agency if they are willing, into a room to discuss your findings. Are your recent marketing messages/initiatives on point? Do they reflect the current work and values of your Bioresearch organization? How has your approach changed over time? Have you had consistent organizational consensus, or do you see points in time when internal politics and miscommunications have affected the clarity of your brand? Do you have a new audience segment you are trying to reach?

Map a Path Forward

By this point you will have learned a lot about the state of your Bioresearch brand. If you feel your brand communications accurately align with your organization’s greater goals, congratulations. Now you can move confidently forward with the information you need to stay the course.

If, instead, you’ve detected a schism between the work your organization does and how you communicate about it, you are now in a better position to change that trajectory. Begin to realign your marketing communications by revisiting your mission statement, defining your brand values, fine-tuning your brand voice and crafting a clear messaging platform that resonates with each audience. Finally, create a plan for getting everyone at your organization on board to ensure your brand is represented the same way in every department and at every level.

Need more guidance on conducting your own internal communications audit?

Finding the time to conduct an audit can feel like a luxury for many Bioresearch communication teams. If your organization could use help getting started, creating a timeline and plan of action, evaluating findings or all of the above–we’d be happy to discuss. Sometimes an outside view or partner is what you need to get moving. Simply call, email or sign up for a free 30-minute Pick Our Brain session. (See sidebar.)