They’re able to relax knowing that their brand is working, not just existing.

1. Understand your objectives

Before you can evaluate your brand’s success, you have to begin by defining what success looks like in the first place. There is an endless list of what can be accomplished through branding but only you can decide what’s most important to your business. Here are a few of the common objectives we set for our brands: 

• Increase brand awareness
• Improve brand perception
• Increase customer engagement
• Increase customer loyalty
• Build authority/thought leadership
• Boost sales
• Promote and position a new offer
• Differentiate from competitors
• Establish emotional connection
• Increase brand equity
• Expand into a new market

We encourage you to pause and highlight the objectives that stand out to you. What areas of your business need attention? Where are problems arising? What do you value as a brand? Use these questions as a starting point for identifying your core objectives. 

For the purpose of this journal, we will focus on measuring brand perception/positioning, brand awareness, customer loyalty, and competitor differentiation — the four objectives that tend to be front of mind for our audience. 

2. Brand Perception

When we think about distinct and well-perceived brands, we think of legacy names like Nike or Apple—two innovative leaders in their respective industries. Their expertise is rarely questioned and they’ve built a cult following of loyal, excited, and emotionally connected consumers. With each product launch, Apple is guaranteed to have customers lining sidewalks across the globe. 

This is what brand authority looks like. 

While you may not be measuring your brand by the number of people lining the door, there are other ways to determine where you fall on the perception scale. First, integrate surveys into your onboarding and offboarding process. Prompt your customers to rate their experience with your brand and leave valuable feedback in order to gauge their overall perception. You can take this same concept and apply it to your audience. Through Instagram polls, Twitter prompts, or AMAs, you can leverage social media to receive tangible responses from your audience. To take this a step further, you can use social listening tools to track brand mentions in online reviews, social media comments/captions, forums, and news. 

3. Brand Awareness

Companies like McDonald’s or Starbucks score high on the chart of brand awareness for their universal reach and recognition. The average person, regardless of their perception of these brands, could recognize the names and easily identify their logos. This is the level of awareness that every brand should strive towards in their industry. 

To measure brand awareness, you can track metrics like website traffic, social media engagement, and search volume to gauge how well your brand is known within your target audience. We personally recommend Google Analytics, which allows you to zero in on the micro metrics that reveal the deeper story. It allows you to measure direct traffic, organic traffic, social referrals, and more so you can see exactly where you’re creating the strongest impression. 

These tools are frequently used for marketing but can also provide insight into our overall brand experience. 

4. Customer Loyalty

The future of a brand hinges on its relationship with its customers. Every business’s dream is to have a roster of loyal customers who resonate with, advocate for, and invest in their vision. But how exactly do you measure this fanaticism? 

To start, keep track of client retention, offboarding feedback, and referrals. The first in this list is arguably the most important. If you’re witnessing a consistently low retention rate, it’s likely a sign that loyalty is waning or, worse, it was never established to begin with. This is an indication to re-evaluate the brand experience you delivering and find ways to improve. 

Similar to brand perception, offboarding feedback, and customer surveys give you direct access into the minds of your people. Let them tell you how they feel. Instead of wondering, create a strategic survey that you send out at the end of each contract or a few days after purchase. These can be made more inviting through branded messaging and incentives (i.e., 10% off your next purchase when you complete this survey). 

You can also measure the level of audience engagement on social media. Are you receiving a majority of your engagement from your current audience or an external audience? Neither is better or worse, they simply reflect where your priorities lie. 

5. Competitor Differentiation

Last but not least, you want to determine where you stand against your competitors. The most effective way to do this is through a comprehensive competitor analysis. This analysis should include data about your competitor’s target audience, pricing, brand strategy, and marketing comparison.

We also recommend following up with lost leads to see whose business they opted for instead of yours. If you are consistently losing leads to another competitor, it’s a good idea to identify why. What are they doing differently? What messaging are they consistently using in their brand? Who is their target audience? By understanding what they do well, you can uniquely channel it into your own brand strategy for increased conversion. 

In conclusion, measuring brand success is a multifaceted endeavor that requires a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics. By carefully defining objectives, tracking key indicators, and adapting your strategy based on insights, you can gain a complete understanding of your brand’s impact and make informed decisions for its future growth. If you’ve audited your existing brand and identified areas of improvement, we would love to come alongside you to reenergize your strategy or rebuild your visual identity. Click here to inquire about Marbury’s services.