A brand with a clear message and a wide reach goes a long way. High brand awareness means revenue. Brand design and dissemination strategies are part of the equation that leads to the path to success. But how would you know if your plan is actually working?
Getting to know your brand’s reach in quantifiable terms is a different challenge altogether. Actually, it is the toughest part. Fortunately, you can start with certain metrics that can offer useful insights on how your brand reaches people. Reading the data will give you an idea whether the effort works and if it contributes value. Knowing this information will make you one step ahead in terms of campaign planning.
Listed below are the seven important things you need to follow closely to measure brand awareness.
1. CHECK THE TRAFFIC OF THE PEOPLE COMING TO YOUR WEBSITE
The amount of people coming in to check your website is indicative of how much the campaign helped in arousing curiosity. It is pretty straightforward in the sense that more visitors mean wider brand awareness.
What you will need to look at is the direct traffic and net-new traffic. The latter points to the first-time visitors in the website.
The challenge here is that you will not really be able to pinpoint the main contributing factor moving the traffic higher or lower.
2. BRANDED SEARCH VOLUME: CHECK IF PEOPLE INPUT YOUR BRAND NAME IN SEARCH ENGINES
The users that searched for your brand in Google — or any organic search engine for that matter — is also a good way of measuring brand awareness.
People wouldn’t really find your brand in search engines if they don’t know what to type in the first place. Hence, the higher this metric is, the more likely that people are aware of your brand.
However, this is only a part of the picture as there are other avenues such as social media that play a significant role.
3. FIND OUT HOW OFTEN MENTIONED YOUR BRAND NAME IS ALL OVER THE INTERNET
In one way or another, netizens will mention your brand, product, or service in the social media or reviews. It can also be mentioned in news platforms or industry publications. In brand awareness, the point is to get the conversation going; and to have it going as often as possible. Although it is important to find out, as well, the context of these mentions. The spectrum of response may range from the highly affirmative, the so-so, or the critical.
The task definitely sounds herculean. However, there are tools available that can help you trace and put all of them together. You can start by simply utilizing Google Alert. Getting to know about brand mentions will help a great deal in strategizing for new products, support or better campaigns.
4. LOOK AT HOW INCREASED BRAND AWARENESS REFLECTS TO OVERALL REVENUE OR LEADS INCREASE
This involves the more specific metrics set by your own organization to measure progress and success. Everyone should agree to these standards. Making these clear steer the organization to the right path.
You will have to coordinate closely with the different departments of your firm for this. Your role as a marketer requires awareness on how these metrics reflect in focus groups such as operations, finance, production, and so on. From there, you can have ideas on what good strategies to adopt.
5. STUDY HOW PEOPLE ENGAGE WITH YOUR BRAND IN SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
Undeniably, social media is a far-reaching platform that could make or break a brand. Conversations surrounding a product or service alone can potentially boost your conversions up to 29%.
Social media users will comment, like, share, tweet or view a product or service. The frequency and quality of these activities definitely tell something about brand awareness. Simply put, the higher these stats or mentions are the wider the reach.
Marketers not only could monitor these activities in social media, but they can also take a lead in starting conversations. However, there is a significant challenge in this platform. In terms of actual customer follow-through, social media could not quite provide a clear picture.
6. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE POWER OF VIDEOS
Video has become more widespread during this Internet age. In fact, there are forecasts of an increase in video ad spending in the future. And similar with other content circulating in social media, the frequency of user interactions such as views, click-through and others are gauges of a video’s effectiveness.
Video is very effective in helping keep your message to potential viewers. With that said, not only should a marketer make a video but also to have it aligned with the agreed upon goals and targeted metrics.
7. COMMIT YOURSELF TO CONSTRUCTING A FULL-FUNNEL ATTRIBUTION FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Making a sales funnel traces the path taken by the customer starting from brand awareness down to accomplishing the actual sale. Studying this journey will give you great insights on how your efforts contribute to success.
This awareness-to-sale approach is a step beyond just attributing the campaign’s effectiveness to the actual conversions. Rather, it gives holistic importance to all the factors contributing to the sale. The main challenge for doing this approach is the huge task for a business to accomplish.
The marketing and business of today thrives in a cross-channel and user-generated climate of this Internet age. For a brand or business to stay relevant, it should be capable and flexible to engage in different platforms and media. It is not enough for an organization to just simply focus in one or two of the steps given — each can have their own disadvantages and limitations. The better approach is to track and learn from these metrics; and at the same time, undertake this in light with committing to a full-funnel attribution model.
As marketers of this day and age, we must do away with the idea of brand awareness as sort of soft campaign goal — something that is hardly measurable compared to campaigns for immediate sales. Brand awareness goals can become a reality and can deliver results. Let the steps above guide you to success.
