Don’t Ignore Brand Health Metrics

You’ve spent countless hours putting together the FY’24 marketing strategy. You’ve brought on a new digital agency. You’ve revamped your messaging. And you’re gearing up to launch one of your largest brand campaigns in company history. But how do you know if all of this work will yield the results you’re expecting?

This is where brand health metrics come in.

Brand tracking provides valuable insights into a company’s performance across various data points, such as campaigns and consumer attitudes toward the brand. According to Forrester, companies that invest in brand tracking have higher customer loyalty and retention rates. A similar study cited in Forbes revealed that effective brand tracking could boost revenue by enabling companies to understand their customers better and customize their messaging and products to meet their needs more effectively.

Measuring brand health should not be taken lightly.

What is Brand Health?

Brand health is a comprehensive evaluation of a brand’s performance, reputation, and consumer perception, reflecting its overall vitality and effectiveness in the market. It is a crucial metric for informing marketing and PR programs and driving business growth.

The role of brand health metrics in driving business growth cannot be overstated. A well-rounded understanding of these metrics allows you to make informed decisions that directly contribute to the expansion and success of your brand. In addition, you can adjust your marketing programs quickly by keeping a pulse on key brand health indicators.

Various technology research companies have emerged as the importance of monitoring brand health becomes increasingly evident. Some frontrunners in brand health tracking include Kantar, Nielsen, Ipsos, and Yougov, each offering unique tools and methodologies to measure brand health.

The following graphic is sourced from YouGov’s Auto Rankings 2023. It contrasts the Index scores of various brands, showcasing how last year’s top contenders compared to the broader US car industry.

By partnering with these companies, you can understand your brand’s health comprehensively and confidently navigate the complexities of the modern business landscape.

Brand health insights can also help integrate and optimize your current and future B2B marketing strategy.

The Role of Perception in Brand Health

Perception plays a vital role in shaping brand health. By understanding how perception impacts consumer behavior and brand reputation, you can develop effective strategies to create lasting connections with your customers, ultimately contributing to your company’s success and overall brand awareness goals.

How Perception Impacts Consumer Behavior & Brand Reputation

Perception is reality.

Understanding the cognitive processes behind consumer perception is essential for building a robust brand. Advertising, word-of-mouth, and personal experience shape these perceptions, ultimately influencing purchase intent and brand reputation.

One effective way to establish a favorable impression is by evoking positive emotions through a focused branding strategy. It’s about brand storytelling and collaborating with influential brand ambassadors to foster an emotional connection with your audience. By doing so, you encourage brand loyalty and long-term commitment.

The goal is to get your customers to “buy in” to your brand’s positioning.

For example, imagine two companies offering similar quality products, but one has a strong, healthy brand image while the other has a poor reputation. Most consumers will likely choose the former, even if the products are virtually identical. This demonstrates the power of perception on consumer behavior.

The Connection Between Perception and Brand Reputation

A brand’s reputation goes hand in hand with consumer perception. When people positively associate with a brand, its reputation will likely be strong, driving increased sales and brand loyalty. Conversely, negative perceptions can damage a brand’s reputation, leading to diminished market share and profitability.

An excellent example of perception impacting brand reputation can be found in the automobile industry. Volvo has been synonymous with safety for decades, thanks to its innovative features and relentless pursuit of creating the safest vehicles possible. This perception has translated into a reputation for trustworthiness and reliability, consistently placing Volvo among the top automotive brands.

The Role of Trust in Your Brand Health Strategy

Trust is essential in maintaining and improving your brand health. Trust forms the foundation of strong customer relationships and directly influences your brand reputation. You establish trust with your audience by consistently delivering on your promises, providing exceptional customer experiences, and demonstrating transparency and authenticity in your interactions. 

The Importance of Building Trust with Consumers

Trust is a fundamental component of every brand-consumer relationship. When consumers trust a brand, they are likelier to be loyal, make repeat purchases, and recommend the brand to others. This is a staple of brand advocacy. The more you can establish brand trust, the more brand advocates will follow.

Building consumer trust involves several factors: transparency, reliability, and authenticity.

One example of a brand that has successfully built trust with consumers is Patagonia. The outdoor clothing company is known for its commitment to environmental and social responsibility and high-quality products. Patagonia has earned a strong reputation for trustworthiness among its customers by consistently demonstrating these values through its business practices and initiatives.

The Patagonia brand performs extremely well in media coverage, given its commitment to brand values.

The Business Impact of Trust on Brand Health

Trust plays a pivotal role in maintaining and improving brand health. When consumers put trust in your brand, they will:

• Buy more: Trusting consumers are more likely to buy more from a brand, whether they need to purchase something new or not.
• Advocate for the brand: Trusting consumers will shout from the rooftops whenever they buy something from your brand.
• Be loyal, tell others: Trusting customers will not only shout from the rooftops, but they will also tell everyone else that they should buy too.

The impact of these three factors is revenue. Brand health is a good indicator of your brand’s financial performance. 

The Psychology of Brand Image

The psychology of brand image plays a significant role in shaping consumer perceptions and driving brand health. By understanding how brand image influences perception and maintaining consistency in your branding efforts, you can build a memorable customer experience that makes an impression.

How Brand Image Shapes Perception

A well-crafted image is a powerful tool to shape consumers’ perceptions and purchase intent and increase brand awareness. Brand image refers to consumers’ mental associations and feelings towards a brand. It encompasses logo design, color schemes, messaging, and overall brand personality. These factors combine to create one impression in the minds of potential customers, influencing their attitudes and behavior.

The Importance of Consistency in Brand Image

Consistency is crucial when it comes to maintaining a healthy brand image. Inconsistent branding can lead to confusion and mistrust among consumers, negatively impacting brand health. To create a cohesive brand image, ensure that all aspects of your branding—from logo design and color schemes to messaging and tone—are aligned and convey the same message.

Understanding Consumer Attitudes & Emotions

Understanding consumer attitudes about your brand is crucial because it directly impacts purchase intent and loyalty. It can answer the question, “Why are consumers buying your products?” and “Why do they come back to buy more?”

This alignment always results in brand health.

Customers are more likely to have a positive perspective about your brand and recommend it to others without you having to ask, and become loyal brand advocates, leading to long-term growth and profitability.

How Consumer Attitudes Impact Your Brand Health Strategy

Consumer attitudes are feelings and emotions toward a brand or product, which is a key factor in maintaining brand health. Several factors shape these attitudes, and knowing that they change is important. Key factors that influence consumer attitudes include:

• Personal values and beliefs: Consumer values and beliefs often determine their perspectives toward brands. Brands that align with these values are more likely to be favored by consumers. For example, environmentally-conscious consumers are likelier to have positive attitudes toward brands that prioritize sustainability and eco-friendly practices.
• Social influence: Friends, family, and peer groups can significantly impact consumer attitudes. People often rely on the opinions and experiences of others when forming their attitudes toward brands, a phenomenon known as social proof.
• Marketing and advertising: Effective marketing campaigns can shape consumer attitudes by appealing to their emotions, needs, and desires. For instance, research shows that emotional advertising is more effective at influencing attitudes than purely informational advertising.
• Past experiences: Consumers’ previous interactions with a brand can greatly influence their attitudes. Positive experiences, such as excellent customer service or product satisfaction, can lead to favorable attitudes, while negative experiences can result in unfavorable attitudes.

This begs the question. Which of these levers can you adjust to affect brand health? The answer is all of them.

Consumer attitudes have a profound impact on brand health. Positive attitudes can translate into increased loyalty, word-of-mouth recommendations, and repeat purchases, ultimately boosting a brand’s market share and profitability. In contrast, negative attitudes can hinder a brand’s success, as dissatisfied consumers may switch to competitors and share their negative experiences with others.

How Emotions Influence Consumer Perception

Emotions play a significant role in shaping consumer perception.

Research has shown that emotions influence purchase decisions. Emotions can foster brand loyalty. And more importantly, emotions can influence consumers to pay a premium for a product or service. Emotionally-charged advertising can create lasting memories, foster positive sentiment, and influence consumers to choose one brand over another.

Brands with little emotional connection with their customers will fall behind and always play catch-up.

Understanding the Differences Between Emotional and Rational Needs

Emotional and rational needs play a part in shaping brand preference. Emotional needs refer to consumers’ feelings and emotions about a brand. These can include feelings of joy, happiness, excitement, or nostalgia. Rational needs, on the other hand, encompass the functional aspects or utility of a product. This can include factors like price, quality, and reliability.

As stated, rational needs are important, but emotional needs often hold more weight in consumer decision-making. Either way, it’s good to have well-balanced messaging that can align with your brand’s emotional and rational benefits.

Integrating Brand Health Metrics Into Your Marketing Strategy

Embarking on the path to integrate brand health metrics into your marketing strategy paves the way for better-informed decisions. To harness the power of these metrics, focus on selecting the right indicators for your business, establishing a robust measurement framework, and leveraging data to drive decision-making and optimize your marketing programs.

Selecting the right metrics for your business is the first step toward integrating brand health into your marketing strategy. Begin by identifying the specific aspects of your brand that hold the most value and relevance to your target audience. Consider metrics such as brand awareness, reputation, loyalty, and engagement as potential cornerstones of your measurement strategy.

Brand Health Measurement Framework

Once you have identified the right metrics for your business, it is essential to establish a reliable measurement framework. This framework should encompass the goals, objectives, and key performance indicators (KPIs) guiding your marketing efforts.

To ensure consistency and accuracy in your analysis, determine the methodologies, data sources, and tools employed to capture and analyze the data. A robust measurement framework will enable you to track your brand’s health over time and compare your performance against industry benchmarks and competitors.

With the appropriate metrics and a solid measurement framework, you can use the insights to inform decision-making. Analyze the data to uncover trends and patterns that reveal areas of strength, opportunities for improvement, and potential threats to your brand’s health.

Using Surveys for Brand Health Research

One effective approach to assessing your brand’s health is primary research. The mentioned technology companies specialize in using primary research to measure brand health. This method facilitates a deeper understanding of your target audience by employing surveys, interviews, and focus groups. A brand health survey enables you to:

• Acquire customized insights: As primary research is designed specifically for your business objectives, it yields information tailored to your brand and its unique context.
• Verify secondary research: While secondary research depends on pre-existing data, primary research presents fresh viewpoints and up-to-date information. By executing primary research, you can confirm secondary research conclusions and ensure your strategies are based on present-day market conditions.
• Detect emerging trends: Primary research can reveal trends and patterns that might not be evident through secondary research alone.

Brand Health Monitoring of Owned & Earned Channels

A more detailed examination of brand health involves social brand monitoring of owned and earned media channels. Owned channels refer to your brand’s official social media profiles, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, while earned channels encompass user-generated content, such as mentions, reviews, and media coverage.

Analyzing Company & Product Reviews for Brand Health Measurement

Review sites such as Glassdoor and Indeed offer crucial employee and candidate feedback. Analyzing and interpreting this data can uncover employees’ sentiments regarding company initiatives, workplace experiences, and senior management. Although the feedback is anonymous, it can significantly indicate your employee base’s brand health.

Furthermore, assessing the candidate’s experience is essential in brand health research. Are candidates unsatisfied with the interview process? Scrutinizing this information can aid your HR team in improving future candidate experiences. You can demonstrate prudence by engaging with positive and negative feedback on these review sites. Proactively addressing concerns and acknowledging praise can substantially influence an individual’s perception and attitude toward your brand, ultimately cultivating a more robust brand image.

Product review sites like G2 or Gartner Peer Reviews are also treasure troves of valuable information about your product. Analyzing reviews based on star ratings, job titles, and industry can give you the insight to adjust your marketing and sales strategies. Additionally, employing text analysis to comprehend buyers’ recurring themes can help drive product innovation.

Using Sentiment Analysis to Measure Brand Health

Measuring sentiment uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze text to classify the tone as positive, negative, or neutral. You likely already have access to text data from emails, customer support chat transcripts, and survey responses. Moreover, scraping public social media comments and company or product reviews is relatively simple.

Sentiment analysis empowers you to probe the rationale behind negative customer or employee perceptions of your brand, enabling you to pinpoint opportunities for enhancement and tackle underlying issues. Once you have captured and classified the data, you can dive deeper with text analysis, offering additional context into specific themes eliciting positive and negative emotions. Like sentiment analysis, text analysis extracts prevalent themes from large text data sets.

To optimize the advantages of sentiment and text analysis, consider the following:

• Identify data sources: Ascertain the most valuable text data sources for your brand, including customer reviews, social media comments, or employee feedback.
• Use sentiment analysis tools: Employ sophisticated tools and software to conduct sentiment analysis on your accumulated data, assisting you in recognizing patterns and trends in the emotions expressed by your customers or employees.
• Execute text analysis: Supplement your sentiment analysis by carrying out text analysis to extract recurring themes and topics from your data. This will permit you to comprehend the factors contributing to positive or negative impressions of your brand.
• Generate actionable insights: Based on your sentiment and text analysis findings, identify areas for improvement and devise strategies to address them. This might entail refining product features, augmenting customer support, or bolstering employee engagement initiatives.
• Keep track of progress: Consistently monitor the impact of your actions on brand health by routinely conducting sentiment and text analysis. This will allow you to evaluate the efficacy of your strategies and make changes as needed.

Sentiment and text analysis serve as invaluable instruments for measuring brand health metrics. You don’t want to ignore this step.

Example Brand Health Metrics & KPIs

You can’t talk about measuring brand health without understanding the metrics and KPIs that go into it.  Metrics and KPIs are the data points that you’ll use to determine your progress against objectives. For example, if one of your brand health goals is to increase awareness, the metrics and KPIs you’ll track against will include impressions, reach, and engagement rates.

Using NPS Score to measure brand health

Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty and satisfaction. By surveying customers’ likelihood of recommending your brand to others, you can categorize them as promoters, passives, or detractors. Calculating your NPS enables you to gauge overall sentiment towards your brand and create strategies to enhance customer experience, increasing promoters and decreasing detractors.

Calculating NPS is easy. You send a survey asking customers to rate the likelihood of recommending your brand to someone else on a scale of 0 to 10. Divide the responses into three categories: Detractors (0-6), Passives (7-8), and Promoters (9-10). Subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters to get the NPS. A higher score denotes greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Uncovering Purchase Intent Using Survey & Search Data

Purchase intent represents the probability of a consumer buying your product or service. To assess purchase intent, you can use survey data or analyze search data to determine the frequency of relevant keywords and phrases. A higher purchase intent signals a healthier brand, reflecting positive consumer perceptions and willingness to engage with your offerings.

For example, surveys can measure consumer interest in buying your shoes if you are a shoe company. Alternatively, analyzing search data can reveal the frequency of people searching for “shoes” or “branded shoes.” Both methods provide insight into consumer purchase intent and give you an unfair advantage over your competitors in the market.

Unprompted Brand Recall

Unprompted brand recall evaluates consumers’ ability to remember your brand without cues or prompts. This metric is crucial for brand health, as it showcases the impact of your marketing efforts and the degree to which your brand connects with consumers. You can assess your brand’s effectiveness by surveying customers and comparing your brand’s top-of-mind awareness to competitors.

For example, suppose your survey reveals that many consumers spontaneously name your brand when asked which brands they associate with a certain product category. In that case, you know that your branding and marketing efforts are working.

You can also measure unprompted brand recall by conducting experiments in natural settings where people interact with each other. By observing how often people mention your brand in conversations, you can understand how much impact your brand has on consumers.

Share of Voice Analysis on Social Media & Search

Share of Voice (SOV) analysis assesses your brand’s presence and visibility across social media and search engines. Comparing your brand’s mentions and engagement to competitors allows you to gauge your relative market position and evaluate your marketing strategies. A higher SOV suggests a stronger brand presence, potentially leading to increased consumer awareness and a healthier brand.

For example, an SOV analysis can reveal how much of the conversation around a specific topic is driven by your brand versus competitors. It can also help you identify which channels and content types are most effective for driving engagement. SOV analysis can be further broken down into several categories, including market share, sentiment score, reach, engagement rate, and frequency of mentions on social media.

Using Web Analytics to Measure Brand Health

Web analytics tools like Google Analytics can provide valuable insights into your brand’s health by tracking website traffic, user behavior, and engagement metrics. By examining these data points, you can identify patterns, trends, and areas of improvement for your online presence. Some key metrics to consider include:

• Website Traffic: Monitoring the number of visitors and page views can indicate the level of interest in your brand and help you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
• Bounce Rate: A high bounce rate suggests that users leave your site without engaging, which may indicate poor user experience or unappealing content. Identifying and addressing the causes of a high bounce rate can improve your brand’s online presence and overall health.
• Time on Site and Pages per Session: These metrics reveal users’ engagement with your content. Longer time on site and more pages per session signify a positive user experience and can indicate a healthier brand.
• Conversion Rate: Tracking the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action (e.g., making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter) can help you assess the effectiveness of your website in driving conversions and contributing to your brand’s health.

Brand Health Measurement Platforms

Measuring brand health requires a diverse set of tools and resources. Analytics, social media monitoring tools, and survey and research platforms can comprehensively understand your brand’s performance, reputation, and consumer perception.

Analytics tools like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and Mixpanel offer quantitative data on your brand’s performance across channels. They help you track website traffic, user behavior, conversion rates, and other essential metrics, contributing to your brand’s online presence and effectiveness.

Social media monitoring platforms like Talkwalker, Brandwatch, and Infegy provide insights into your brand’s performance on social media. Using these platforms for brand health monitoring can make tracking mentions, hashtags, and engagement rates easy.

Below is an example of the Talkwalker brand health dashboard.

Survey and research tools, including Qualtrics and Typeform, capture qualitative data on consumer sentiment, preferences, and brand perception. Regular surveys allow you to measure brand reputation in AI, metrics like awareness and loyalty, helping you identify areas for improvement and growth.

Visualizing Your Brand Health Research

Tracking and understanding your brand’s health is critical. It’s just as critical to present your insights quickly to busy executives who may not have the time to peruse detailed reports. This is why creating compelling visual representations of your brand health research is essential, ensuring vital information is easily understood and quickly digestible.

Why You Should Build a Brand Health Dashboard

Creating a brand health dashboard for monitoring your brand’s performance is the key to an effective marketing strategy. A brand health social media dashboard tracks your brand’s performance across various channels and metrics. Having all this data in one place, you can understand how each element is performing and what’s working best.

A well-designed dashboard consolidates data from various sources, presenting it in an easily digestible format. It lets you track key metrics in real-time, identify trends, and uncover potential issues before they escalate.

Integrating Data Sources for a Complete View of All Brand Initiatives

Integrating data from multiple sources is vital for a complete view of your brand’s health. This could encompass social media engagement, website analytics, customer feedback, sales performance, and other pertinent KPIs. Merging these data points allows you to discern correlations and causal relationships, helping you uncover areas for improvement and exploit growth opportunities. Moreover, consolidating data from diverse sources enables you to keep up with industry trends and adjust to evolving consumer preferences.

Brand Health Analysis Powered by Data Visualization

Tableau offers a data visualization solution for creating interactive, shareable dashboards. Its intuitive interface and strong analytical features enable the conversion of raw data into practical insights. Utilizing Tableau’s advanced functions, you can develop a tailored brand health dashboard that monitors crucial KPIs, reveals trends, and supports data-driven decision-making. Tableau also seamlessly integrates with various data sources, making it a suitable option for tracking brand performance across multiple channels.

Looker Studio is another data visualization platform that lets you create interactive, customizable dashboards. Its accessible interface and wide range of features equip you to analyze intricate data sets, recognize patterns, and discover insights to guide your marketing strategies. Looker Studio’s solid integration capabilities facilitate connections with diverse data sources, delivering a complete view of your brand’s health. This all-encompassing perspective aids in identifying growth opportunities, tackling challenges, and making informed decisions that boost your brand’s reputation and overall health.

Toyota: Brand Health Tracking Study

Toyota’s success in maintaining production levels during the chip shortage was due to its updated inventory management system, which ensured a stockpile of essential chips. As a result, Toyota’s yearly U.S. vehicle sales outpaced GM’s for the first time. The Harris Brand Platform data showed that Toyota saw increases across all components of brand equity from the first quarter of 2021 to the final quarter. This growth in consideration, familiarity, trial, usage, and recommendation is impressive, indicating that more consumers are interested in purchasing a Toyota and are satisfied enough to recommend it to others.

The Toyota case study illustrates how having the right tools to navigate unforeseen disruptions can greatly contribute to a brand’s ongoing success. Brands should learn from Toyota’s success and look for ways to mitigate potential snags from slowing their production processes to stay ahead of competitors. Overall, the Harris Brand Platform provides valuable real-time insights into consumer brand perceptions that can inform strategic decisions to move the needle.

This case study exemplifies the importance of brand health tracking to measure the impact of real-world challenges. The Harris Brand Platform provides continuous insights into consumer brand perceptions and tracks customer progression through the sales conversion funnel. By analyzing Toyota’s response to the semiconductor chip shortage, the case study demonstrates the benefits of strategic preparation in maintaining production levels and increasing consumer brand sentiment.

FAQ