How frequently do consumers purchase your product or service? Are they purchasing from your competitors? If runners recommend Nike to all of their friends–and you’re trying to break into the market–how can you show consumers you’re a better brand? Understanding consumers’ brand usage will help you see where you stand, and enable competitive analysis to help you find the right niche. Brand attributes: What do consumers think your brand should do for them? Are you meeting their expectations? What benefits and pitfalls do they associate with your product category? A part of the reason consumers may think positively of your brand is not based on convenience or price, but how well you fulfill their needs. Getting consumers’ opinion about your brand attributes can help you understand where you’re doing well, and what you need to improve your message. Purchase intent: Be sure to include questions that ask consumers whether or not they’re planning on purchasing your product or service in the future. Comparing purchase intent before an after an advertising campaign is a great way to see how you’re doing. Tracking your brand lift: It’s easy for marketers to get caught up in common metrics when trying to track the impact of their campaigns. Site visits, clickthrough rates, and impressions are all important, but not necessarily a good indicator of how people feel. To fully understand the impact of an ad or marketing campaign, marketers need to measure the “brand lift”. The term brand lift refers to an increase in target audience perception; something that can seem hard to measure. While you can’t read people’s minds, marketers can quantify how people feel about their brand, specifically in the context of a specific campaign. To test brand lift, customer feedback is critical. It’s important that marketers conduct market research surveys that include questions that will measure sentiment and test the messaging of their ads. Asking question types that probe on values like brand awareness, brand recall, customer purchase intent, and customer affinity can help quantify perception about an ad, and give marketers a sense of whether their messaging is hitting the mark. A brand lift survey helps identify both favorable and negative changes throughout the purchase cycle. Marketers can track how their target audience feels post-campaign at each stage of the buying journey; from awareness, perception, consideration as well as purchase intent. This is why brand lift is so important—it can be a key metric of what people plan to do after they see your ad, and whether your efforts have improved the chances of converting them to customers. Brand survey question examples Brand awareness: When you want to see how aware consumers are of your brand, the best way to make sure you’re getting a true measure of whether or not you’re present in consumers’ minds is to give them an initial survey with unaided questions (questions that do not include your brand name–consumers recall your brand without being given a hint.) Example: When you think of running shoes, what brands come to mind? Respondents can write in any brands they can think of, and you can use the answers to give you an accurate measure of whether or not consumers know who you are. In addition, you now know who your major competitors are–and can measure your brand against them in other surveys down the road. Measure how aware consumers are of your brand with the Brand Awareness Survey Template. Brand usage: With brand usage questions, you want to measure if people have used your brand in the past, if they use it now, and how frequently they purchase your product or service. You should also ask if they’re purchasing other brands. Remember, you already know which other brands to include in your survey questions because you asked consumers to name brands in your brand awareness question. Example: Please indicate which of the following brands you buy or use regularly. (Select all that apply.) Brooks Nike Mizuno Asics New Balance Other (Please specify) Make sure to include an “Other (Please specify)” option so that you don’t force respondents to choose an answer that doesn’t reflect how they truly feel. You can also learn about other popular competitors by including a text box that allows respondents to provide their own answer. Brand attributes: In an initial survey, ask open-ended questions to see what consumers expect from products like yours. Examples: What are some positive words you would use to describe running shoes? What are some negative words you would use to describe running shoes? What are some traits would you say is most important for running shoes to have? To get deeper insights, follow up by asking respondents to rate your competitive set on attributes that you know are important to consumers. This approach will help you see which characteristics consumers associate with your brand (and your competitors) so you can play up certain concepts in your brand advertising campaign. Example: We would like to know whether or not you associate the following characteristics with each brand provided. Select all of the characteristics that apply to each brand. If you have never heard of a particular brand, please leave those rating boxes blank. Purchase intent: To see how purchase intent changes after your campaign, ask the same question before and after, using a Likert scale to measure how likely they are to purchase your product. Example: How likely are you to purchase Brooks running shoes in the future? Extremely likely Quite likely Moderately likely Slightly likely Not at all likely You can also ask purchase intent questions about where consumers will make their purchase (online or in-store); if online, through which site; and when, (in the next month, 6 months, 12 months) so you can track and predict purchase behavior that will inform the timing and location of your next campaign. Who to ask about your brand (and how often) You can run an initial demographic survey to find people who’d be inclined to purchase running shoes–and continue to target that demographic frequently. After you perform your initial brand tracking survey, and you’ve got your first set of data, you should repeat that survey often to note trends over time. Through SurveyMonkey Audience, we can also help you find thousands of qualified respondents. Rapidly growing companies or companies in a quickly changing market should engage in brand tracking research on a quarterly basis. Companies in other markets should run brand surveys 1-2 times a year. Whichever interval you choose, be sure to stay consistent so you can accurately monitor positive and negative trends–so your next brand advertising campaign will reach the right people at the right time (and send the right message). Want to learn more about managing your brand’s performance? Visit the Branding and Brand Identity resource page. Ref: https://www.relevantinsights.com/articles/brand-tracking/ Brand tracking studies allow marketers to monitor the health of the brand. They provide insights into the effectiveness of marketing programs implemented by the company. What To Track Each brand faces different issues, which often required customized tracking surveys. Nonetheless, at Relevant Insights, we always recommend our clients to include measurements of awareness, usage, brand attitudes, perceptions, and purchase intent in brand tracking studies. Awareness You should start by collecting brand recall and recognition metrics. They are different indicators of the strength of the competition among brands in the minds of the consumers. A brand that first comes to mind in certain situations is more likely to be considered than one that is only recognized. Usage We measure usage through recency, frequency of usage, and total spending in the brand, and product category. These brand tracking measures tell us about consumer shopping behavior and preferences. They are also indicators of market share and “share of wallet.” The latter is the amount of consumer spending a brand is capturing and has a direct impact on a company’s revenues and profits. Brand Attitudes and Perceptions We usually capture brand attitudes and perceptions through questions related to brand associations that consumers develop through their brand experience and exposure to positioning messages from PR, advertising, and promotional programs. Many brand associations are often beliefs about product-related attributes and benefits. However, brand associations also include non-product-related and symbolic benefits. Product and non-product associations, as well as those related to price and value, are important sources of brand equity and should be part of brand tracking studies. Some brand associations are stronger than others, are more easily recalled, and are enough appealing that they become an important factor in a consumer’s decision to buy a brand. By the same token, brands may be perceived as unique, but without strong and favorable brand associations, uniqueness really doesn’t matter (Strategic Brand Management, Keller, 1998). Many times, attitudes towards a brand go beyond the product to include attitudes toward the company. You may be aware of how allegations of harassment and a hostile work environment tarnished Uber’s image in 2015 – 2016. The bad reputation generated by these scandals ended up helping Lyft, which was almost defunct at that time. In 2019, Uber hasn’t recovered yet from the negative perceptions. Some analysts even blame them partially for Uber’s inability to make a profit, among other factors. Purchase intent Measures of likelihood to buy a brand or switch to a competitor are also indicators of brand health and should be part of brand tracking studies. However, we should put these questions in context regarding specific products or brands, reasons for the purchase, time, channel, price, and other relevant factors to the purchase decision. These variables may be predictive of actual purchase behavior. When To Track Brand tracking studies usually involve collecting quantitative data from consumers on a regular basis. One way to do it is to continuously collect information. This would allow us to control for unusual marketing activities. Moreover, it would provide a more representative picture of how the brand stands in consumers’ minds and against competitors. However, this type of brand tracking may not be feasible due to budget and resource constraints. If continuous tracking is not feasible for an organization, we can still collect data at certain points in time (monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.). This approach may be equally effective, depending on how rapidly the industry is evolving When determining the frequency of data collection in brand tracking studies, we recommend clients to consider: Frequency of product purchase: For example, durable goods with long purchase cycles can be tracked less frequently. Marketing activity in the product category: A category where brands are constantly launching marketing programs and promotions requires more frequent monitoring. Level of competition in product category: Highly competitive product categories, where new products and competitors are constantly trying to break in, should be tracked regularly. Stability of brand associations: Brands with an established image that don’t change quickly over time, can afford less frequent brand tracking. Whom To Track We often conduct brand tracking studies with current customers. However, monitoring the non-users of the brand can prove to be invaluable. It can support the development of acquisition and market penetration strategy in the search of business growth. Including non-customers who are active in the category in your sample will also allow you to monitor your competition. How to Interpret Brand Tracking Metrics Given the comparative nature of brand tracking studies, brand tracking measures tend to stay the same over time. However, you should revise from time to time to assess their reliability and sensibility. The metrics may show steady numbers over time and thus reflect the stability of brand associations. However, they can also be unable to capture important shifts in the market due to changes in sociodemographic trends, competitive landscape, and economic macrotrends. Another issue with brand tracking measures is defining what constitutes the desirable level of a particular metric. Is a 50% level of awareness good enough? It depends. It is all relative to the product category and the competitive environment. In low involvement and competitive product categories, it may be difficult to get very high awareness and strong brand associations. Consequently, the benchmark for what is a good level for a metric differs across industries and product categories. Customize It Finally, we customize each brand tracking study to capture brand associations that contribute the most to brand equity, and the marketing activities that are effective at strengthening it. The goal is to identify key drivers that impact consumers’ brand choice and purchase behavior. This knowledge will help develop marketing tactics that can lead to brand growth and sustainability. If your company has a brand tracking program already in place, make sure to assess its quality at regular intervals. Check the article: Useful Questions To Assess Branding Research Quality for more information about how to do this. (An earlier version of this article was originally published on April 15, 2010. The article was last updated and revised on September 1, 2019.) 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