You may think your brand is just fine as it is, but data doesn’t lie. Both quantitative and qualitative metrics are useful when gauging the current standing of your brand in comparison to where you’d like to see it go. Today, we’re sharing our tips for assessing the internal and external aspects of your brand, and our thoughts on when to consider rebranding.
At Movéo, we often look to a brand’s familiarity and consumer awareness to determine its current standing with consumers. Both types of awareness, aided and unaided, reveal valuable information about the general perception of your brand. Unaided awareness, also known as brand recall, occurs when a consumer remembers a brand without prompting. For example, if a consumer is asked to name a type of soda, they might mention Coca-Cola, Sprite, and Dr. Pepper. In contrast, aided awareness occurs when a consumer expresses knowledge of a brand after being prompted. In this case, a consumer might recognize “Diet Rite” even if the name didn’t initially jump into their head. From a marketing standpoint, a high unaided awareness is a good indication that consumers feel strongly about your brand and that you have a firm position in the marketplace.
When analyzing competitors’ branding efforts, we recommend looking to engagement and reach. Although competitor assessments can be difficult to conduct, you can still gather valuable information from websites, email campaigns, and social media. Look to content that’s been shared by both you and your competitor and analyze each post. What voice do they use when sharing content? How many responses, engagements, and shares do they get from each post? What does their website copy have that yours is missing? In addition to engagement, be sure to monitor reach as well. Try to get an idea of how many followers and shares competitors’ pages have, and estimate their approximate reach across platforms. Once you have a rough idea, compare your metrics to theirs. Where do your strengths and weaknesses lie?
Internal and external audits can lead to valuable insights. For example, your internal analysis may have revealed that consumers see your product in multiple categories, leading to low unaided awareness. Furthermore, your external analysis may have shown that you’re targeting a completely different audience than your competitor without fully realizing it. Once such insights are gathered, it might be time to consider a change. Check out our tips for beginning a brand refresh, and stay tuned for next week’s post, when we discuss exactly how to conduct a successful rebrand in the age of data.
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