How to Measure and Enhance Brand Reputation Value

This article was originally published on SwiftPropel.

Brand awareness acts like a brain shortcut. When you see a logo, hear a jingle, or identify a particular color, it is almost instantaneous that specific brand associations come to your mind. But it is quite difficult to measure such a thing. How do you really quantify your brand’s impact on people’s minds?

Metrics are helpful in that situation. They reflect the small but powerful effects that a brand has on people’s minds. From social media mentions to searches, these metrics provide information about the brand’s presence and influence. In this article, we will present some brand awareness metrics and also give some tips on how to enhance it. So, let’s begin!

What is Brand Value?

Brand value refers to the perception of a company in the minds of consumers, stakeholders, and the market in general. It is not only concerned with the company’s visual identity and slogans, but it also represents the total sum of what the company is, how it is perceived, and the emotional bond it makes with its audience.

Some of the components of this element are:

• Brand Perception: It is how the brand is seen by consumers and is determined by the brand-related experience, marketing communication, and public opinion. A positive perception may lead to increased brand loyalty and a more robust market position.

• Customer Loyalty: The loyal customers are those who will very likely pay more for a brand they trust, which will be the direct contribution to its value. Such loyalty is created through the offerings of consistent quality, reliable customer service, and positive experiences over time.

• Market ‍Position: A brand’s place in the market will be one of the factors determining the brand’s value. We can reasonably expect the brands that are considered leaders of the industry or those setting the trends to have a higher brand value.

Basically, it is the factor that is not seen but is very powerful that determines consumers’ choices, influences market trends, and, what is most important, shapes a brand’s reputation. The first step in using this power is to understand the components that constitute it.

Why Is Brand Value Necessary?

Brand value is like the engine that keeps a company alive and growing. These are the points that matter:

• Influence on Customer Loyalty and Retention.

  Brands with high value are the ones that build strong and meaningful relationships with their customers, which is the main reason for high loyalty and retention rates. When customers make such a connection with a brand, they are more likely to stay loyal to it even when they have other ‍options.

• Influence on Pricing Power.

  Firms that have a valuable brand may charge more for their products because their customers either already accept or are willing to accept that these products are of higher quality, more trusted, or prestigious. In this way, though there is strong competition in the market, the pricing power ensures that companies can still have decent profit margins.

• Market Leadership and Financial Success.

  The value of a brand can be the factor that easily pushes a company ahead of its competitors while at the same time increasing its revenue potential. According to Brand Finance’s Global 500 report, Apple saw an astonishing 74% increase in its brand value in the past four years, reaching $517 billion and becoming the world’s most valuable brand. This is a clear demonstration of how brand value, as a driver of market leadership, is leading to financial success.

Building Your Brand Value

The following are some of the ways through which you can boost your brand’s equity and, eventually, your brand value:

1. Marketing and advertising

Marketing helps you to go beyond brand awareness and recognition and get to customer understanding, alignment, and loyalty. The original concept of brand value chains points to marketing as the first step towards realizing brand value. This is because it is through marketing that a brand gets established in the customer’s mind.

2. Ambassadorship and Sponsoring

Whether it is sports stars, social media influencers, or musicians, the association with a famous person or group is a time-honored way of brand-building. In addition to the increased awareness and recognition of your brand, through this method, the brand can also be linked to the brand’s purpose, where, by your ambassador’s selection, your company’s ethical and social values are made more visible and ‍ ‌‍ ‍‌ ‍ ‌‍ ‍‌strengthened.

3. ‍Customer experience

Amazingly, enhancing customer experiences can result in a substantial increase in brand equity. To the same extent as good products and services, customers expect a nice experience from the brands, and research has shown that many of them are ready to pay more and decide to take the brands that they have experienced positively rather than their competitors.

How to Measure Brand Reputation

You first need to understand your brand reputation before you can actually do something about it. For the most thorough analysis of your reputation, you should start by gathering as much data as possible about customers’ statements and their perception of your brand online. Some of the best places to obtain this information are:

1. Search Social Media as well as Other Earned Media Channels

Look for your brand mentions and other tags that are related to your business area. Be brave enough to involve yourself in the discussion. In case someone gives a general statement about your brand, ask them to explain their point. By entering the discussion early, you can perfectly brand sentiment.

Also, do not limit yourself to social media. What about other earned media sources, like blogs or even news outlets? In case you have run a groundbreaking campaign, someone is likely writing about it outside social media.

2. Check Review and Rating Platforms

It is certainly a fact that consumers are much more likely to provide a negative review than a positive one. However, by looking up review and rating platforms, you can still get a good grasp of how your audience receives your products.

Here are a few sites to consider:

• Amazon customer reviews

• Google reviews

• Facebook reviews

• Yelp

• CNET

• Trustpilot

3. Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction turns out to be the most important measure, which shows how happy customers are with the products or services offered by a company. This indicator is vital for evaluating the level of overall customer fulfillment and happiness, which has a direct impact on brand loyalty and customer advocacy.

Usually, enterprises implement customer satisfaction measurement through surveys, feedback forms, and by monitoring both customer complaints and compliments. When customers are highly satisfied, they can become brand advocates, who will positively talk about the brand and influence others to buy the company’s products or services.

4. Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis goes beyond, offering detailed insights into overall consumer moods towards a brand, as revealed in digital discussions. The process involves assigning the consumer’s feelings to positive, neutral, or negative categories. Besides, it furnishes the brand with the necessary information to gauge its users more deeply, find areas for enhancement, and address the issues that may lead to brand reputation damage swiftly and effectively.

5. Google Trends data

Google Trends data helps one to see the changes in the number of people who are searching for the name of your brand over time. This costless instrument unveils both the seasonal and the long-term patterns of demand for services or products.

Keep an eye on the following indicators:

• Month-over-month search volume changes

• Seasonal interest spikes for campaign timing

• Geographic search distribution.

Another advantage of comparing your brand’s search interest with competitors is that you get a better understanding of your ranking position.

6. Share of Voice

Share of Voice (SOV) is a measure comparing a brand’s visibility with that of competitors, thus giving an indication of the brand’s authority and awareness among current as well as potential consumers. Consequently, it is a crucial metric to determine a brand’s position in the market and can be used in decision-making at the strategic level.

7. Referral Traffic and Backlinks

Referral traffic and backlinks are basically the frequency of people visiting your site through external links on other sites. When you monitor referral traffic, you determine which external sources, like blogs, news sites, or social media platforms, are bringing visitors to your site.

The good news is that there is enhanced visibility to your website and improved brand credibility with high referral traffic from trustworthy sources. If you are the one with numerous sites linking to your source, then it is telling that the others are talking about and valuing your brand. Moreover, if these referrals are from industry influencers or thought leaders, this is a strong endorsement of your brand’s authority.

8. Search traffic

How many people uncover your website via search engines is a reflection of how often people are actively looking for your brand or the answers you have for their problems. Your brand would be the first one that comes to the customer’s mind with relevant needs, which is why it is a clever way of measuring brand awareness.

Use ‍this measurement to see the extent to which your brand is influencing the market and recognize chances to further raise brand visibility and awareness.

How to Build Brand Value

Positioning your brand as a perfect fit for an acquisition or simply figuring out your brand loyalty and health, creating brand value is a sensible move for a marketer or a business leader. Below are some of the practical steps that you may implement to increase your brand value:

1. Clearly Define your Brand Identity

In case your brand is overshadowed by competitors on the shelves, is unclear in the consumer’s mind, or simply isn’t memorable, then it won’t contribute to your brand value. Concentrate on building or polishing up your brand identity. If you are unsure, use data from our expert-written Brand Health Tracking Survey Templates to identify the exact points from which your work should start.

Also, remember that all the efforts you put into your brand identity should not be limited to the marketing team only. Make sure that employees from different departments understand well who you are as a company and how to represent your brand by sharing brand loyalty insights, explaining branding strategies, and checking their familiarity through surveys.

2. Ensure Consistent Practice Across All Channels

Every brand sports a character. Employing the same tone, language, and style in every interaction and channel, from blogs and web content to emails and social media posts, is undoubtedly a new trend in marketing.

In fact, this spotlights the consistency between all of the brand’s channels, which in turn ensures that branding efforts are purposeful regardless of which platform customers choose to engage with the brand.

3. Offer Excellent Products or Services

Without a doubt, one of the most effective ways to build a brand is through quality products or services. Once people view your brand as reliable, they’re more likely to buy from it, return to it, and spread the word about it.

Ensure that product feedback is generously gathered and then implement the suggestions found there. Discover what delights and frustrates consumers and base your product development strategy completely on their voice and experience. That way, it will be quite impossible to take the brand offering as the most favored product for consumers.

4. Create a Strong Client Base

What would be another way to increase your brand power than merely by being reputed for your customer experience? Committing to progress at every customer touchpoint, leveraging data from a customer satisfaction survey to set goals, and focusing on relationship-building to get noticed are the major steps worth following.

5. Develop a Unique Brand Story

If you are not certain about the story you communicate, then consumers are likely to be in the dark, too. Think of all the means through which you narrate your brand story, such as brand voice, customer testimonials, ads, brand mission, and web pages.

Always confirm with your target audience when in doubt, and give brand affinity measurement a priority. A message testing survey will reveal how far your storytelling is hitting the mark. Likewise, a tool like SurveyMonkey ad testing can help with gauging the effectiveness of ad creators, including copy, before launch.

6. Spend on Marketing and Brand Awareness

Good brand awareness, or how well consumers know a product or service, is a must if one hopes to have a brand with significant value.

Make research a habit and regularly conduct Brand Awareness Survey using a Template that best matches the need in order to get a true measure of your brand’s popularity. Use the obtained data to clarify your market position and set goals for ‍improvement.

7. Foster ‍Trust and Transparency

Consumers today simply do not have the time and are not willing to tolerate brands that are not transparent, don’t show their true side, and are not accessible. To verify your claims or to write a bad review that will frighten people away from your company is only one click away.

In addition, you should also understand what is important to your consumers and what would definitely cause a rupture of trust between them and your brand.

8. Continuously Innovate and Adapt

On the contrary, a brand should always keep evolution in its sights besides consistency. Carry out frequent brand health and customer experience audits to understand where the possible openings are for new ideas, strategies, modernization, and also react to the most salient trends.

Furthermore, do not lose sight of customers’ perception of your brand and their brand associations. In case a brand attributes survey discloses that people consider your brand personality to be dull or old-fashioned, then it signals that it’s time to figure out ways of not only refreshing but also rebranding your brand image.

Conclusion

Evaluating and enhancing your brand’s image is a never-ending journey that calls for continuous data gathering, examination, and executing plans. The utilization of customer insights, social media monitoring, review platforms, and being proactive in engagement are the main ways through which a company can build a positive brand image that would attract the target audience.

It is also worth pointing out that some of the major steps towards creating a good brand reputation are: making amends for customer issues, showing thankfulness, giving great customer service a priority, and, most importantly, being true and facilitating transparency. When the proper tactics are implemented, it becomes possible not only to develop a loyal customer base but also to gain trust and to firmly establish your brand in the ever-changing world of ‍digital.