How do I measure the strength of my brand?

To get to the right questions for your distinctive brand, start your brand assessment by setting out the strategic objectives.

Are you looking to benchmark how your brand is performing in the competitive landscape? Or are you tracking the impact of a particular strategic initiative to increase brand awareness or change how it is perceived by potential buyers?

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Ask the right questions

Your strategic objectives will determine the questions in your brand assessment program. We are often looking to measure the strength of your brand and how your customers make decisions (such as, what they look for in a brand and where they go for information).

For example, we might ask the following randomized multiple-choice question. The answers may help to steer your marketing strategy in terms of your digital advertising and paid media spend.

We can also ask about what your customers care about when it comes to making purchasing decisions. Asking this next question could help to refine your brand messaging and more effectively engage your audiences in PR campaigns.

It’s important to have buy-in from senior leadership and cross-functional teams at this initial stage, and an agreement about the business objectives associated with a brand assessment. This will create an easier path to informing strategy and driving change once the findings of the research are delivered.

Focus on data quality

To get accurate answers, we need to ask the right people. That can be challenging in B2B markets as sometimes the target audiences are highly specialized or represent a small population.

In some instances, it may not be realistic to reach a quantitative sample size of target decision-makers, say, CMOs at Fortune 500 companies, to have a robust degree of statistical confidence in the data.

In those instances, interviews with a smaller number of highly qualified participants can be just as valuable and give an indication of a brand’s position and perception in the market, even if it’s not possible to capture quantitative metrics, such as a measure of the level of awareness.

When we do have an audience large enough to sample, it’s important that the survey questions and response options are clearly defined and account for the limits of human attention. Long lists of brand attributes can distort responses, for instance, if respondents are overwhelmed and stop paying attention. 

Once the data is in, we can use analytical frameworks to understand key drivers of customer behavior. Linear regressions can also help us to determine why customers will consider a brand. Correspondence analysis, otherwise known as brand maps, helps to visually demonstrate the extent to which brands are seen to be associated with certain attributes.

Capitalize on results

Sometimes, brand assessments can yield surprising results. An established marquee name in the market may believe that it is trusted by customers, but if the product quality has eroded and at the same time competitors have invested in innovation, then they may no longer be considered the go-to brand.

Core recommendations from the brand assessment may be to invest more in innovation and/or product development or refocus brand messaging to highlight the brand’s long heritage and value-for-money.

Ultimately, brand assessment research can help to unearth and diagnose a wide range of opportunities to improve brand performance. Even so, one of the biggest challenges companies face once they know their brand awareness and reputation in the market is putting in place a strategy to improve it.  Here are three solutions for how that can be achieved:

Focus groups with customers can help to further diagnose problems or understand the “why” behind the quantitative metrics. Segmentation can help to better understand the market and steer a sales strategy targeted toward specific customer groups and their distinct brand requirements. 

Key takeaways

In order to get the most value out of your investment in brand assessment, it’s essential to:

• Ask the right questions based on strategic objectives that you solidify with leadership teams.

• Focus on data quality by selecting the right people and accounting for human behaviors.

• Capitalize on results (which may surprise you) through definitive strategies such as focus groups or segmentation.

Continuing to track brand awareness on a 12 to 18-month basis, or after completing a major strategic initiative, will determine the effectiveness of any strategic initiatives informed by brand assessment research and provide clarity into their ROI.

Interested in learning more about our unique approach to brand assessment? Let’s get in touch.