Guide
How to work with actions
Each analysis is translated into concrete, action-oriented actions – prioritised into three levels and linked to a 12-month timeline. You set the status of each action, and the plan adjusts as you work. You own the plan – nothing happens automatically without you having made a decision.
Actions
3 priority levels
Each analysis is translated into a list of concrete actions. The prioritisation is not static – when you mark an action as resolved and run a partial analysis, we update the assessment and the plan adjusts to reflect reality.
Critical
Start here
Addresses what directly undermines credibility, differentiation or commercial strength. This is where the impact is greatest.
Important
The coming year
Your strategic development plan – solid work that builds further once the critical items are in place.
Consider
When capacity allows
Opportunities you can return to when capacity is available.
Status of actions
Each action has a status: open (new, not yet addressed), in progress (you are working on it), to do later (deliberately parked), resolved, or dismissed.
It is important that you quickly assess new actions and continuously update their status. This will ensure the overall list of actions does not become unmanageable. An expanded filter at the top of the list helps you maintain an overview as the number of actions grows.
Dismissed is for actions that are not relevant to you – perhaps it has already been addressed in a way the analysis could not see, or it simply does not make sense in your context right now. When you dismiss an action, we ask for a brief reason. This is not bureaucracy – it is what ensures we do not repeat the suggestion in future analyses, and it helps us understand your reality better.
When you mark an action as resolved, we also ask for a brief comment about what you did – this gives us a better basis for assessing your brand going forward.
From action to text
If an action calls for a new text, for example a post, a newsletter or a press release, you can set it in progress and write it directly in BrandWriter. In-progress writing actions appear on the left side of "Write new content", and once the text is saved, BrandWriter offers to mark the action as resolved.
The overall plan
12-month overview across the board
The overall plan brings together all actions from your own brand and from your competitor analyses in a single timeline for the calendar year.
Two groups
Strengthen your own brand collects what develops your own identity and communication. Exploit competitors' weaknesses collects what stems from competitor analyses – split by competitor so you can expand and collapse them.
Colours follow priority
Critical, important and consider – just like the list. Striped bars mean the action has not yet started. A red border means it should have started by now.
The current month
Is always marked, so you can see where you are – and what is coming up just around the corner.
Info icon on a bar
Means the action is waiting for another. Hover to see which.
Click on a bar
Opens a panel with details about the relevant action.
Arrow on the right edge
The action continues into the new year – either because it extends beyond December, or because it does not start until after the turn of the year.
The schedule is yours
We place each action in a month based on its priority and the date of your run. That says something about what is urgent, but nothing about when you have the hands for it. So you can move an action to any month you like, forwards or backwards. The Move in plan button sits on the action card and in the plan side panel, and Reset to suggestion takes it back to our original placement. A label shows throughout when something has been moved.
A move never changes the priority. Critical, Important and Consider are our assessment of what matters most to the brand, while the timing is your decision. Once you start an action, the date locks and the bar shows the day you actually began. To edit it again, set the status back to "later". If a month passes without the action being started, it is marked as overdue in both the plan and the list. That is purely information and triggers nothing.
If you move something ahead of an action it depends on, both are flagged, but nothing is blocked, and nothing moves along on its own.
The impact/effort matrix
Where does the effort pay off most?
The matrix plots all your actions in a 2×2 view by expected effect and effort level. Use it to determine where to begin – regardless of what priority level the analysis has assigned.
Quick Wins
High impact, low effort – start here, regardless of priority level. These are the lowest-hanging fruit with the greatest return.
Strategic priorities
High impact, high effort – the big work that really moves things. Plan these in advance.
Secondary efforts
Low impact, low effort – pick them up when there is capacity, but do not let them crowd out more important actions.
Deprioritise
Low impact, high effort – focus your energy on the other quadrants first.
Two ways to prioritise
The levels – Critical, Important, Consider – are about strategic importance and time horizon. They are set by the analysis and say something about what and when. The impact/effort matrix is about sequence: within a priority level, which actions give the most for the effort? A Critical action with low effort should still come before one that requires half a year. Use both – they answer two different questions.
From Finder to action
Gap between now and desired profile
If you develop a new desired profile in one of the assistants, the system can identify a potential gap to your current brand – and offer to generate actions that address it. These are marked with a special tag in the actions list.
How to use it
Use the list
When you need to address a specific action – get started, park it, dismiss it, or mark it as resolved.
Use the overall plan
When you want to see if things fit together timewise: are we working on the right thing now? Is something being left behind? If a month does not match your capacity, move the action directly in the plan.
Use the matrix
When you need to decide where to begin. The matrix shows which actions give the most for the effort – regardless of priority level.
The plan shows when – the matrix shows where to start. Use them together.
Own content
Concrete recommendations for your own content
Own content gives you concrete recommendations for something you have already made – for example a text, a web page, an image, a PDF or a Word document. The recommendations build on a BrandCheck and show how to bring the material closer to your brand identity while strengthening it as the type of content it is. Use the recommendations yourself, or pass them to a colleague, an agency or another partner.
Select material or run a BrandCheck
Select a previously checked material in the list to view or generate recommendations. If you have not run a BrandCheck yet, start there. BrandCheck assesses the material's consistency with your brand and its ability to stand out, and identifies the concrete areas that can be strengthened.
Two types of recommendations
On-brand recommendations
Align the material with your brand identity: archetype, tone, values, core narrative and differentiation. They start directly from the weaknesses BrandCheck found and show what reduces the distance between the material and your brand.
General recommendations
Strengthen the material as a content type based on best practice: structure, hook, length, hierarchy and composition. They are not about your brand identity, but about how the material works as, for example, a LinkedIn post, an ad, an article, a product page or a newsletter.
The two types are shown separately, so you can clearly see what is about your brand and what is about the format itself.
The content type is detected automatically
brandvju automatically assesses which type of content you have checked and uses the type to make the general recommendations more relevant. If the type is not detected correctly, you can change it before you generate the recommendations. That gives more precise advice for the exact format you are working with.
How to get the best recommendations
Where possible, use a whole, representative piece of material: a complete post, a full ad or an entire web page rather than an isolated excerpt. At the same time, choose the relevant assessment in BrandCheck.
Text: when the material's words, messages and tone are what matter.
Visual: when expression, layout, imagery and composition are what matter.
Both: when text and visual expression should be assessed together.
Also check that the content type is correct. It matters for the general recommendations.
The report
The recommendations can be downloaded as a report in the same slide format as the recommendations for your brand. The Report button sits next to Copy and opens the report in a new tab, ready to print or save as PDF. The first page is the assessment itself: the title of the material, the content type, consistency and differentiation, the quadrant, the overall assessment and the material itself. If the text has been optimized with BrandWriter, the lift from before to after is included.
Then come the recommendations, four per page. Brand recommendations and general recommendations are kept apart, so the general ones always begin on their own page. The page header tells you where you are, for example "Brand recommendations: 1-4 of 6". The report works well as a brief for an agency or another partner who is to adjust the material.
From measurement to finished text
BrandCheck measures the material. Own content shows what you can concretely improve. If the material is a text, you can send it straight to BrandWriter and have it optimized in one click. BrandWriter uses the identified weaknesses as the starting point for the optimization.
BrandCheck measures. Own content advises. BrandWriter optimizes.
Download results
Analyses, actions for your brand, recommendations for your own content and results from the assistants can be downloaded as reports, for your own use or to share with others in your organisation.