onsumer expectations, technology and a reduction in barriers to market entry have significantly changed the way we do business but there are a few things that have – and will probably always – remain constant. I’m talking about the drive for success, which is typically translated as “growth”, at least in for-profit organisations. Universal key strategic organisational objectives therefore most commonly centre around the improvement of the following three pillars of business: brand, revenue and customer service. In this article, I’ll be focussing on brand but make sure to keep an eye on your inbox (if you’re a subscriber) or our socials for content on the latter two key strategic objectives.
To understand how to measure the health of your brand, and consequently how to improve it, we must first recognise the operational indicators of brand health. These are: Brand Awareness and Brand Alignment.
Let’s dig in a little deeper.
Brand Awareness
In a nutshell a business’s brand is what the business does ,who it’s primarily for, how it differs from competitors or alternatives, what it does well, what it does badly, and how much it costs. It doesn’t really matter what the projected perception of a brand is however, if the market doesn’t know about it in the first place. This is why creating awareness is so important and why businesses should invest in and measure it.
Brand Alignment
A well aligned brand is one which effectively communicates what it does, who it’s for, how it differentiates, what is does best, and it’s positioning of price within the market to its target audience. If the target audience perceive the brand differently, say for example who it’s for, then there is a misalignment in the brand which will negatively affect the business.
If you polled a sample of your prospective customers, would they accurately recall your intended positioning in the market in terms of price, quality, differentiation and service for example?
Brand Health Key Performance Indicators
Let’s take a step back for a second. We know we want to grow our brand and we now know that the operational indicators of brand health are Awareness and Alignment. So, what do we track so that we can measure these effectively? This is where we get down into the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) of each of the operational indicators.
Brand Awareness KPI’s
The KPI’s of brand awareness centre around the portion of the target audience who are aware of a business. We can measure awareness and analyse changes over time using data from social media, website traffic and surveys. Specifically, we want to look at trends across:
- Organic followership, engagement and mentions across social media
- Organic keyword searches of the company name
- Direct and referral website traffic
- Survey data for brand recall (% of respondents who have or haven’t heard of a brand)
Brand Alignment KPI’s
Where brand awareness KPI’s focus on how many people have heard of a brand, brand alignment KPI’s focus on whether those aware of the brand are perceiving it accurately.
Brand alignment measurement can be a little more qualitative than quantitative and can be measured in surveys and independent comparisons. Specifically, we want to look at trends across:
- Surveys of existing clients on their perception of the brand
- Surveys of prospective clients on their perception of the brand
- Independent comparison sites or articles
Data-Driven Brand Investment Decisions
By tracking and measuring the KPI’s discussed above, businesses are able to make data-driven investment decisions around the growth of their brand. The first step in doing this however, is to ensure that this data is tracked, comparable and accurate. So, if you’re not already investing in techniques to acquire this data then now is the time to make room for it in your marketing strategy.
If you’re not100% sure where to start, but this article has struck a chord with you then reach out to our team for advice around marketing and brand. LimeHub is an innovative Australian Marketing Agency focussed on delivering custom marketing solutions for businesses just like yours.
