In today’s hyper-competitive, crowded marketplace, what attracts consumers to choose one brand over another? Of course, consumers consider several factors before making a purchase, however, nearly all purchases — 95%, to be exact — have an emotional component.
These emotional decisions are impacted by a customer’s perception of your services, a connection they feel to your values and messaging, reviews they’ve read online or heard from peers, or your general place in a market. In short, attributes that make up the backbone of your “brand health.”
Brands who consistently track and analyze their brand health are setting themselves up for success, both present and future. As such, it’s an essential addition to other metrics your organization may already be tracking, such as revenue or growth. It safeguards your position in the marketplace, while also supporting the bottom line.
In this blog, we’ll cover all the background information you need to know about brand health tracking, such as:
- The definition of brand health and its key components
- The advantages of monitoring brand health
- The measurement solutions you can implement into your digital advertising toolkit.
What is Brand Health?
Brand health is a collection of customer metrics and insights that indicate how your brand is performing in the marketplace. This doesn’t entail “the numbers” (i.e., sales) but rather your company’s perception among consumers and how you stack up against competitors.
While there isn’t one single meaning of brand health, all definitions are based on the customer experience associated with your brand and the emotional connection they have to your products and services. “Unhealthy” brands spark little emotional connection with their consumers; as such, they can’t distinguish them from competitors or other similar products. In contrast, “healthy” brands consistently deliver experiences that align directly with their brand promises and create positive experiences for customers, employees, and stakeholders.
How is Brand Health Calculated?
Just like there’s no clear-cut definition for brand health, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to calculating brand health. Based on specific goals and objectives, brands will identify various factors that impact consumers’ perception of their goods, services, and reputation. Brands can utilize customer feedback portals, employee engagement, and survey and focus groups to obtain direct feedback on their health. Additionally, they can measure performance across metrics such as share of voice, share of search, category entry points, competitors (both direct and indirect), and brand strengths and weaknesses.
The collection of this data tracked over time paints an ongoing picture of how a brand performs in the market, what consumers think of it, and how they use it. In short: brand health.
Advantages of Brand Health Tracking
Understanding the health of your brand apart from traditional success metrics gives you a more thorough picture of your organization’s performance and how you stack up against market competition. As advertisers know, the more information you can obtain, the better data-driven decisions you can make. Brand health is no different, as the data obtained in these studies provide many advantages for ongoing success, four of which are outlined below.
Identify company strengths and weakness
Consumer priorities are constantly shifting and brands that can’t keep up with these changing priorities will be disadvantaged. Ongoing brand health tracking ensures you understand where you align with these needs and where you may fall short. Additionally, as you grow and diversify as a company, brand health calculates how these changes are performing in the marketplace and either supporting or detracting from overall ROI.
Yields better understanding of the competitive landscape
Is your brand the top choice among consumers? Are consumers easily swayed to try a competitor product after purchasing from your brand? Why are consumers drawn to make continued purchases from one brand versus another?
Identifying key competitors and understanding how your brand stacks up using metrics like customer loyalty and retention paints a clear picture of where you stand in the marketplace. From an advertising perspective, this helps identify any lapses in your strategy or areas you can improve to connect with, draw in, and retain consumers.
Create benchmarks to better track impact over time
By regularly tracking brand health, you can easily compare how consumers view your brand over time. This helps better inform the impact of specific campaigns, news, or new product announcements. Additionally, regularly tracking your brand makes it easier to spot patterns or correct underperforming areas.
Leverage insights for future business and campaign planning
As mentioned, regularly benchmarking brand health data helps businesses identify critical patterns and opportunities. Advertisers can leverage these insights for data-backed strategies and campaigns.
For example, if consumers are most receptive to your brand during the summer, advertisers can heavy up on media during these months. Alternatively, if Advanced TV is a significant trigger in your market, advertisers can use more strategic ad messaging across this channel to speak to consumers at this stage in the buying journey.
With a robust understanding of your brand health, brands are poised with an entirely new data set to make more informed business decisions. Ideally, this yields better results and a more substantial return on investment.
In Summary
In short, brand health tracking helps companies better understand how to attract and retain customers, make the most impact in their advertising strategies, and best compete and succeed in the marketplace. Beyond the tangible takeaways, it pushes organizations to look beyond revenue as a measure of success. It enables data-driven decisions, a strategic imperative for businesses looking to thrive in the long run.
Are you ready to better understand where you fall in the marketplace and improve your brand health? Learn more about our comprehensive Brand Health Solution here.