When a brand is “sick”, customers leave, recognizing the symptoms of decline. For several reasons, a brand can lose its way, but it won’t always be immediately apparent. As a matter of fact, most brands don’t even realize they’re “ill”, which is why it’s vital to track health by measuring key metrics, such as awareness and reputation, the feelings the brand inspires, and repeat customers that stick around, to mention a few. A brand health checkup tells you whether you’re well-positioned relative to other brands in the market in terms of the durability of products, sustainability and ethics, corporate social responsibility, and so forth.
Brand Health: Definition & Meaning
In a time when people are particularly vocal about their thoughts online, it’s crucial to keep your brand’s health in check. It should be high on your priority list. Many things can hurt your brand, including customer reviews, negative PR, social media, etc. Brand health is the general outlook on your brand, offerings, public image, and communication. To put it simply, it’s the measure of how effective your marketing is at helping you reach your objectives. The happier customers are with your products and services, the better your brand’s health (and the stronger your positioning on the market).
Knowing how your company is viewed in the marketplace is essential because it can lead to increased sales and returning customers. Having good brand health is a shortcut to success. More exactly, if customers believe in your business, they’ll choose your product or service above any other and will no doubt defend your brand against negative reviews. In a competitive marketplace, you need all the help you can get. A healthy brand is one that is committed to supporting and maintaining the beliefs it stands for and always conveys a clear, strong message. It’s instantly recognizable and arouses fond sentiments in the minds of its audience.
What Are the Metrics for Brand Health?
Your company must pay attention to numerous brand health metrics when measuring the success of your marketing campaigns, such as:
- Market share – Your market share is the size of your company with respect to its market and competitors. It’s the amount of dollars spent by consumers on your brand. Tracking your brand’s market share will show you if you’re gaining or losing ground to competitors.
- Net promoter score – NPS gauges customer experience and predicts business growth. It’s used to determine customer loyalty, satisfaction, and enthusiasm with your company. By asking straightforward questions, you receive feedback on how to improve your offering and identify customers willing to provide testimonials.
- Brand sentiment – Brand sentiment is the underlying emotion, positive or negative, that’s provoked by your brand. Rather than focusing on quantitative data, you should better examine the context behind the comment.
- Brand awareness – Audiences are familiar with your brand to a certain extent. Brand awareness is measured by how well consumers recognize your name, logo, products and services, etc. Monitor the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives every now and then.
- Customer acquisition – A healthy brand manages to bring in new customers, which influences revenue growth and market share. For many businesses, sales can be unpredictable, so the outcome is often determined by chance.
- Customer retention rate – The customer retention rate measures the percentage of existing customers who remain loyal after a given period. A high retention rate means people value your company, providing a stable source of revenue.
Brand Health Can Be Assessed Using Various Methods, Such As
Although not empirically supported by analysis, there seem to be cultural differences in the distribution of responses across all brand assessment measures. Americans are generally very consumer-savvy. San Francisco, for instance, faces multiple challenges that very few advertising or digital campaigns can transform because the average consumer can see through traditional sales pitches. For San Francisco businesses, market research helps identify gaps in consumer expectations. Nevertheless, it’s not recommended to make cross-country comparisons but to observe the trends over time and determine the degree to which improvements or declines occur. The most common ways to measure brand health are:
Surveys
If you ask legitimate questions, you’ll get direct answers. Surveys let you understand how customers feel about your brand, what their expectations are (e.g., they want you to be friendly), and how to deliver a meaningful experience. Depending on your industry and organization, the study can be repeated every three to six months or on an annual basis on account of the fast-paced environment. The questions you ask in your surveys are critical in terms of brand health, so address the areas in which you need to improve. The results will identify how successful your marketing is or at least identify areas of improvement.
Customer Reviews
People read customer reviews to learn more about your brand and research products and services before committing to a purchase. Monitoring and responding to customer reviews is crucial as you can identify gaps and make improvements (where possible), address customers’ problems, and demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction. Some people might leave negative comments on review sites to show their displeasure. Nobody wants a negative review, but it’s bound to happen at one point or another. Reply in a timely manner, remain professional and courteous, and make an effort to understand their experience with your business prior to responding.
Media Monitoring
People share valuable insights for brands on social media, which is why you should monitor conversations. Find out what customers like, dislike, want, and need. More exactly, actively search digital media channels for keywords or phrases related to your brand to get an idea of your company’s public perception. The positive feedback can be used in marketing, while the positive feedback can be used to correct errors in your business. Social media monitoring can be passive, for instance, listening to people to find out what their interests are.
Social Listening
Social listening makes it possible for you to appreciate what current and prospective customers think about your brand by analyzing what they say on social channels. Attention must be paid to the fact that conversations on the Internet produce large amounts of unstructured data, so the right tool depends on your goal. If you discover that you’re pulling unrelated results, reduce the noise by using common phrases or keywords associated with your brand, including misspellings. It’s useful to look at sentiments vs. perceptions.
The Takeaway
Your sales figures tell a story, but that’s not the whole story. Without measuring brand health, you can’t know if your efforts are paying off.