What Are Brand Awareness Metrics And How To Measure Them?

Some would say that there is no point in measuring brand awareness. It’s a vague concept that barely has any useful information for the brand owners, especially as it has no numbers in today's data-driven society.

And still, if done correctly, measuring brand awareness could become a powerful tool.

The question is…

Why should you measure brand awareness?

Think about the oversaturated markets and overflowing competition. If people remember your product or service first, it means your brand is becoming more well-known. However, if your brand is not the first choice - how can you change it?

This is why knowing specific metrics and keeping track of data is advantageous. You can recognize trends and patterns and apply them to future ad campaigns or marketing strategies.

Source

What is branding and why it is important for successful brand awareness?

The official definition of branding is giving a company a particular design or symbol to advertise its products and services. In simpler words, branding is the process of associating ideas, characteristics, or philosophies with a company.

For example, Ikea's branding concept states that everyone should be able to afford stylish, modern furniture. Airbnb encourages people to make the most of their lives by traveling and not worrying about shelter, and Coca-Cola has always been a company about sharing and happiness. Without strategic planning and associated ideologies, Ikea would be just another furniture store, Airbnb would be just another hostel, and Coca-Cola would be just another fizzy drink.

Not only does branding benefit a company in the sense that it becomes more than just a company; it also makes a business memorable, trustworthy, and credible, not only for their product but also for the ideas they promote.

Which data analytics tools can help you track your brand awareness progress?

Three of the most popular and simple-to-use tools for tracking the metrics (such as: brand recall, social mentions, or organic traffic) reporting, and developing successful brand awareness campaigns and marketing strategies:

Ahrefs helps you understand why your competitors are ranking where they are so you can figure out how to outrank them. It's an SEO tool that examines backlinks and how they rank in the industry.

Google Trends - most advantageous when used for a long time as you can only then identify trends and patterns. From Google Trends, you can compare your brand search popularity to your competitors.

A useful feature of this analytics tool is Google alerts. If you add your brand name and related keywords to Google Alerts, it will notify you by email when the search engine indices a page that matches your set brand name or related terms.

Whatagraph is a tool that analyzes all of your channels, social media platforms, and paid campaigns. It shows how many people visited your website, their engagement and bounce rate, how well your paid media is performing, and which pages are the most popular.

This tool was designed to make tracking marketing KPIs simple. So, whenever you want to raise brand awareness, consider your previous progress and make data-driven decisions.

How to improve your current brand awareness?

1. Virtual events are an important option for businesses. It is still relatively new as viral marketing, but it can be viewed as a marketing channel in which you have the opportunity to provide massive value. This can help to increase awareness of your company in the long run.

Tip: Conduct research to better understand your target audience and deliver content that they will find interesting by:

• Asking them directly through various email surveys;
• Use Facebook Insights to gather info like the demographics of your audience, pay attention to comments and messages you get from your users.
• Pay attention to direct traffic, which indicates how many people type your URL directly into their browser. This metric indicates the number of people who are already familiar with your brand.

2. Partnering with influencers, also known as influencer marketing, increases brand awareness by leveraging influencers' power over their followers. Influencer content outperforms brand-created content, according to 51% of marketers who use it. Sending influencers a carefully curated PR box can help build a stronger relationship with them, showcase your brand's products and values, and increase the likelihood of them promoting your brand to their audience.

Why does it work? Influencers have built a relationship of trust with their fans. As a result, influencer marketing will give your company a boost in credibility. More credibility = more people will consider trying out your products.

3. Referral programs are now part of the many marketing strategies. Generally speaking, it allows marketers and brand managers to generate brand awareness. Referral marketing gives services and products a distinct identity that differentiates them from less recognizable competitors.

Tip: Getting more exposure for your referral program includes - using your email list and running engaging special promotions with a strong call-to-action.

Revolut's 'Invite friends to Revolut' referral program offers cash rewards for each referred-in friend who orders a physical card and makes three card payments — for example, €45, £50, and US$10 have been offered. Between 2018 and 2019, Revolut reportedly saw a 700 percent increase in the number of customers acquired through their referral program.

4. Remarketing is when a user visits your website and takes an action, a cookie is placed in their browser. Because of that cookie, marketers can retarget those visitors with relevant ads based on their website behavior.

Remarketing helps to reduce lost customers by giving marketers a second chance to interact with interested customers. It also aids in the creation of highly targeted ads because you have more information about the customer's preferences.

Ralph Lauren is one of the examples of strategic remarketing campaigns. What they do is if you leave your cart unattended on their website, they will send you a two-cycle email to try to attract you back to finish the purchase.

5. Give away free items! It could be anything from free ebooks to guides, templates, and subscriptions. Giving something away for free not only strengthens your relationship with customers but also helps you build rapport with people who have never heard of your product.

Insight: Gifting customers is also part of social media engagement game and engagement rate is definitely something to keep an eye on. Think about it, it is easier to get a client’s attention when you offer something free of charge that has a lot of value.

Conclusion

As previously stated, brand awareness is a vague term that may appear to be a 'soft' campaign goal that cannot be measured. However, if used correctly, the provided metrics and steps for improving brand awareness can become a powerful tool when competing with competitors.