We're halfway through the year, and while you're probably checking your revenue numbers and updating those Notion dashboards, there's one thing most people forget to audit: their brand.
Whether the past six months went exactly to plan or left you quietly panicking over your unfinished goals, your brand deserves a check-in. With time, your brand, your business, your industry, and you have all evolved. And it's part of your job as a freakishly good service provider to make damn sure your brand evolves with you too.
In this episode, I'm walking you through what I call a quarterly dress rehearsal (aka your brand's performance review). This is the ritual that's led me to major decisions like rebranding into Flying Colors Creative, starting this podcast, and having those clarity-gaining conversations with past clients.
Brand audits and quarterly reviews don't exactly sound exciting. They sound like spreadsheets, homework, and more admin to add to your plate. And I'm willing to bet you're thinking, "Eva, I came here for creativity and inspiration, not maintenance."
But it doesn't really matter if the past six months haven't gone according to plan and you're wondering if you need to burn it all down and start over, or if you're riding the high of your most successful launch yet. Either way, your brand deserves a check-in.
We're right at the cusp of summer, and now is the perfect time to sit down with your brand and really ask yourself: What's working? What's not? Why is that? What needs changing? What should we keep?
If your brand hasn't been creating the impact you want, you're better off making changes now than waiting for something to actually break right before the biggest sales season of the year.
You don't want to wait until your engagement tanks or you're knee-deep into a September launch, realising, "Oh yeah, maybe the whole reason why none of this is working is my brand."
Now, auditing your marketing or tracking your finances is relatively straightforward. It's all about gathering the data, looking at the numbers, and analysing conversion rates. But when it comes to your brand, it gets trickier. You're not just crunching numbers — you're working with emotion, visuals, tone, perception, and how your audience feels when they come into contact with your brand.
And you really don't want to be changing your visual identity every six months, right? But you should be checking in to see if all the different pieces of your brand are still aligned and working together to support your business goals.
Today, I'm walking you through what I call a quarterly dress rehearsal, a ritual I implemented into my own brand and business to make sure I'm being intentional with my decisions instead of just going day to day, making tiny decisions on the fly without checking in with the bigger picture goal.
This habit has led me to some pretty major decisions: rebranding into Flying Colours Creative, repackaging my offers, starting this podcast, pushing launches further into the calendar, and even starting conversations with past clients to gain the clarity I realised I was missing.
I call it a dress rehearsal on purpose because your brand isn't just a pretty backdrop to your business. It's the full-blown stage, the costume, the lighting, the music. It shapes how people perceive you and, ultimately, if they buy from you.
Without a quarterly dress rehearsal, it becomes way too easy to drift off message, start blending in with what everyone else is saying and doing, and let your visuals slowly go Frankenstein from all the different inspo you're collecting. You end up losing the thread of what you're actually building here.
And then you wake up one day and realise your brand isn't aligned with where your business is heading at all.
So let's just avoid the whole meltdown, shall we?
The very first thing you want to check is your visual lineup. Ask yourself: Do my visuals look cohesive across platforms (Instagram, website, newsletter, offer graphics, client documents, content…)
Think about the journey a potential client might go on. They find you on Instagram, click that link in bio, land on your website, and subscribe to your newsletter. Put all those touchpoints side by side and see if you're still using the same visual elements — the same fonts, colours, layout themes. Is your photography aligned? Are your icons and patterns aligned with the story and tone you're trying to tell?
And even though this is a visual lineup, also look at your words. Do your captions, website copy, and emails have the same tone of voice, and are they supported by those visual elements?
Think about if someone discovered you for the very first time today and went through that whole journey , would they understand your vibe? Or would they think they clicked the wrong button and landed on what was not supposed to be your website, because the vibe is so different?
If your Instagram feed is all fun and colourful and full of reels of you talking, but then your website is walls of text with no photos of you and a pretty basic layout template, we've got a disconnect. And people do notice that disconnect. Even if they can't point it out exactly, it confuses them.
That hurts the first impression your brand makes. So if your tone of voice has evolved, if your messaging has sharpened, your visual elements need to match that too, and match each other, no matter what platform someone's getting into contact with your brand on.
If your visuals are pretty on par with each other and nothing stands out in the wrong way, then I want you to do an audience reaction pulse. When you go to a circus show and there's this spectacular thing going on, you want your audience to have that ah moment.
So check your content engagement, but not just the numbers and metrics. What I usually advise clients to do is look for patterns on what got the best engagement rate. Is there a particular content topic that got more saves, shares, replies, or comments? Is there a pattern where perhaps carousels are getting more engagement or driving more interesting questions from your audience than reels? Then perhaps you're better off betting on carousels than reels.
There's also a point to be made on which type of content you enjoy creating the most. Not necessarily what you're fastest at creating, but the type of content you feel more proud to put out there. Because if you're more proud of it, you're promoting it more and it reaches further than the rest of your content, and that's what matters most.
If there's a disconnect between what your audience is saying about you and what you want them to actually say or how you want them to perceive you, then that's your cue to recalibrate.
Last but not least, you want to do a gut check, an alignment one. Go inward.
Really understand from everything you've just reviewed: What excites you the most? Does your brand even excite you at all? When you're looking at all of these things and recalibrating and refining and tweaking, are you getting excited at the possibilities? Do you suddenly feel this urge of being creative? Do you feel seen and represented and energised by how you're showing up?
Can you see the impact and direct correlation of how your brand is generating the results you want?
And on the flip side: What about your brand is weighing you down and no longer feels like you? Can you perhaps either outsource that part or understand how to do it better if you have the time for it? Or is something bigger at play here?
Taking that content example: Are you having trouble designing carousels because you don't have the right brand to support it? Is designing those carousels tough because you just don't have the content ideas? Or is it because there isn't enough clarity in your brand's mission, in your brand's positioning, in your audience to know what content to create?
Is it a small problem or a bigger problem? Because no matter how good those visuals are, if the vibe is off, the impact is off. And that's why you're not getting the results you want.
After you do these three steps — the visual lineup, the audience reaction pulse, and the alignment gut check — start small.
You might come to the conclusion that it's the right time to rebrand after all, but most often than not, it's small tweaks here and there. Maybe it's something really simple like working on that first email people get once they sign up to your newsletter, or working on the hero section of your homepage, or tidying up your proposal PDF. Get one easy thing out of the way that you felt wasn't up to par.
Then flag the big main one for later. What's the big problem you uncovered? Is it that your photos are out of date and that implies planning a photoshoot further along the year? Is it perhaps that your service suite needs repackaging because it just isn't how you want to work anymore? Perhaps it's that bigger problem where you need to rebrand.
I don't want you to ignore the big thing in favour of the smaller win. I want you to plan for it. These are things that need to be broken down into smaller tasks, and you need to work on them over time. That's why making the time for checking in and building on your brand — and not just your client work — is so important.
Set a reminder to do this again in three months. Literally put it in your calendar: Brand Dress Rehearsal, every quarter, like a performance review for your brand. Because the longer you put it off, the harder it becomes to have the intention, have that big picture view to understand what needs changing, and then have the motivation to make those changes on purpose.
Whether you're coasting into summer with a glass of Aperol Spritz (that would be my recommendation) or you're going to hustle this season, make the time to check in with your brand. Not just when something breaks, not just when you're launching, but regularly, intentionally, with care and curiosity.
Because when you keep your own brand front of mind, it becomes front of mind for others too, and it becomes a tool that works for you.
Trust me, your future self and your future clients will thank you!
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This episode was co-produced with Adrienne Cruz.
Over the last 5 years as a Brand & Marketing Designer, I’ve helped freaks like us design their unconventional brands so they can step onto the main stage & own their weird. Because if you wanted to be, look or sound like everyone else, you wouldn’t be where you are today. Now it’s your turn.
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