Branding metrics is an integral part of any modern branding strategy. Every company knows where they would like to be from a brand recognition standpoint. Measuring brand impact is a great way to understand the disparity between your internal brand perception and external brand reality. When information is cheap, measuring brand impact might seem like a simple ordeal. The truth is actually quite the opposite. With competing brands using every possible advantage to gain a bigger market share, maximizing your brand impact has never been more nuanced or complex.
With all of this in mind, today we will be defining exactly what brand impact means, how companies can measure their key brand impact metrics, and finally how to use this data analysis to create a positive brand strategy moving forward.
What is Brand Impact?
Brand impact is very similar to brand awareness. Some would say that the two terms are synonymous, but we would respectfully disagree. Instead, we would say that brand awareness is a part of overall brand impact. Investopedia defines brand awareness as: “a marketing term that describes the degree of consumer recognition of a product by its name.” Brand impact encompasses the concepts of brand awareness, brand engagement, competitive assessments, brand perception, and much more.
To summarize, brand impact could be defined as the sum of the brand’s power and impact on the world. Today’s market has more blurred lines than ever before. Consumers want to get to know the personality and heart of their favorite companies. Where before brand impact was contained to hard sales figures — today it includes social media impact, humanitarian and environmental policies, and much, much more.
Measuring Key Brand Impact Metrics
Now that we understand the vastness of brand impact’s scope, how exactly can brands measure their impact? Many successful brands opt to first understand their brand’s needs and determine which metrics matter most. When it comes to brand impact, any of the following are great options:
Brand awareness metrics
As discussed above, brand awareness is inherently tied to brand impact. Common brand awareness metrics include:
- Social media reach including shares, views, and other social media interactions
- Brand mentions which could be blogs articles, social media shares, or any other media which names your brand
- Media mentions such as news articles, media segments on TV, YouTube clips, critical reviews, and more
- Search metrics for both your brand specifically and for terms related to your brand, industry, and products
Brand favorability metrics
Awareness is one thing, how consumers view your brand is another matter entirely. Brand favorability metrics tells your company where consumers are and are not resonating with your brand message. Common brand favorability metrics include:
- Questionnaires/polls are a great way to measure brand favorability. Hard data on favorability is notoriously difficult to come by, which is why many brands still opt for the “how likely are you to x” questions after using a product.
- Aggregate reviews on sites like Yelp!, Google, Amazon, etc. Better reviews don’t just indicate customer satisfaction with an individual product, but also may indicate overall favorability.
Competitive analyses
Another great way to determine your brand’s overall impact is by performing a competitive analysis within your industry. This puts context to your other brand metrics and often reveals key weaknesses and opportunities for brand growth. Common competitive analysis metrics include:
- Preference metrics can be as simple as asking customers whether they prefer product x or product y. This is a great baseline for measuring competitive brand impact.
- Hard data analyses on market share, total units sold, etc. Ultimately, brand impact is relative compared to your competitors. Traditional brand metrics are useful for comparison’s sake.
- Web presence including social media and mentions is another huge indicator of comparative impact. If you are in the same industry, searching for that industry and evaluating whose brand comes up as result number one is a rudimentary, yet telling test.
Turning Brand Impact Measurements into a Brand Strategy
At the end of the day, all of the brand impact analyses in the world won’t do your company any good if they do not lead to a plan of action. This all starts by performing the optimal brand metric analysis. Detailed information on irrelevant topics will not help your brand grow. Developing a solid brand strategy often involves repeated if not continuous evaluation and re-evaluation of your brand impact metrics. This re-evaluation includes whether or not the metrics being measured are of material use.
Once the brand impact data starts rolling in, brands must then balance between adapting to weaknesses and customer demands vs. losing their brand identity. Walking this tightrope is something that the best brands navigate with each major decision. Adapt too much and you could confuse your customers. Adapt too little and you could be failing to take advantage of market opportunities.
Clock Tower Insight Provides Brand Impact Analyses and Detailed Marketing Tools
Clock Tower Insight helps our clients to build their brands through any means necessary. We believe in using cutting edge research to deliver unparalleled insight and understanding into today’s rapidly changing marketplace. With over 15 years of dedicated experience, our marketing insight has helped organizations including Belle Tire, Nielsen, Orbitz, and Kraft Foods.
We are proud to offer a number of services to our clients, including customer experience management, brand positioning in the marketplace, market sizing, market testing, and more.