Know-How Exchange : Branding

As mentioned above, a SWOT is a pragmatic tool in your your audit.

Define the competitive set the brand is in. If you have market share and pricing research, look at trends in share and average selling price.

(If both are going down at the same time, you have a big problem.)

Another way to zero in on market dynamics is to have a nice confidential chat with your most experienced sales people. They will know where your greatest problems and opportunities are.)

As you identify problems, don't worry yourself sick. Get them down very clearly, so you can explain to people what the biggest problems are.

Next you are going to need a plan to do something about the problems. The most pragmatic way to do this is to take your list of clearly identified problems and get yourself a trusted cross-functional group -- sales, marketing, technical, management.

Your problem may be in marketing, but it is much more likely that there is something in the product that people no longer want to buy. If this is the case, solve the product problem first, or really narrow your marketing down to the market that you can still be competitive in.

These generalities may be helpful -- it's hard to know without knowing what product you are dealing with here.

Good marketing will kill a bad product faster than no marketing.