Brand tracking surveys to measure marketing efforts

When you perform a brand tracking survey, you’re essentially taking your brands’s vitals by asking: How aware are consumers of your brand and whether they’re customers; what they feel about your brand; what they expect from you and your competitors; and whether they plan to purchase your product or service.

In any case, if you’re a brand manager or in marketing, you know it’s important to monitor your brand health so you can stay in step with your competitors. But tracking your brand equity can also help you measure how you do over time, as well as measure the impact of marketing and brand advertising campaigns.

Say you’re a shoe manufacturer who launched your latest brand advertising campaign with posters touting your newest running shoe in buses and subways. Do you know if the ads influence your target market, or translate it to a lift in sales? Maybe using a QR code or a special offer can give you some loose indication of the posters’ impact, but counting scans or downloads doesn’t tell you how consumers feel about your brand as a result of the campaign.

When you conduct a brand tracking survey in conjunction with your advertising campaigns, you can get a much better sense of the overall impact–and get customer insights to help inform future campaigns. The key is to find out how consumers feel about your brand before you launch your ads–then to reassess after. That way, you can see if (and how) your new brand strategy is affecting your target market. Additionally, you can set benchmarks to measure your brand health over time.

If you want to create a comprehensive brand survey, make sure you cover the following areas:

Brand awareness is how familiar consumers are with your brand. If, for example, someone is asked to recommend a great running shoe, which brand will they suggest? Will they recommend Nike simply because it’s one of the most well-known athletic brands? You may be missing out on sales if your brand isn’t present in consumers’ minds. Find out where you stand with consumers with a brand awareness survey.

How frequently do consumers purchase your product or service? Are they purchasing from your competitors? If runners recommend Nike to all of their friends–and you’re trying to break into the market–how can you show consumers you’re a better brand? Understanding consumers’ brand usage will help you see where you stand, and enable competitive analysis to help you find the right niche.

What do consumers think your brand should do for them? Are you meeting their expectations? What benefits and pitfalls do they associate with your product category? A part of the reason consumers may think positively of your brand is not based on convenience or price, but how well you fulfill their needs. Getting consumers’ opinion about your brand attributes can help you understand where you’re doing well, and what you need to improve your message.

Be sure to include questions that ask consumers whether or not they’re planning on purchasing your product or service in the future. Comparing purchase intent before an after an advertising campaign is a great way to see how you’re doing.

When you want to see how aware consumers are of your brand, the best way to make sure you’re getting a true measure of whether or not you’re present in consumers’ minds is to give them an initial survey with unaided questions (questions that do not include your brand name–consumers recall your brand without being given a hint.)

Example: When you think of running shoes, what brands come to mind?

Respondents can write in any brands they can think of, and you can use the answers to give you an accurate measure of whether or not consumers know who you are. In addition, you now know who your major competitors are–and can measure your brand against them in other surveys down the road. Measure how aware consumers are of your brand with the Brand Awareness Survey Template.

With brand usage questions, you want to measure if people have used your brand in the past, if they use it now, and how frequently they purchase your product or service. You should also ask if they’re purchasing other brands. Remember, you already know which other brands to include in your survey questions because you asked consumers to name brands in your brand awareness question.

Example: Please indicate which of the following brands you buy or use regularly. (Select all that apply.)

Make sure to include an “Other (Please specify)” option so that you don’t force respondents to choose an answer that doesn’t reflect how they truly feel. You can also learn about other popular competitors by including a text box that allows respondents to provide their own answer.

In an initial survey, ask open-ended questions to see what consumers expect from products like yours.

Examples:

To get deeper insights, follow up by asking respondents to rate your competitive set on attributes that you know are important to consumers. This approach will help you see which characteristics consumers associate with your brand (and your competitors) so you can play up certain concepts in your brand advertising campaign.

Example: We would like to know whether or not you associate the following characteristics with each brand provided. Select all of the characteristics that apply to each brand. If you have never heard of a particular brand, please leave those rating boxes blank.

To see how purchase intent changes after your campaign, ask the same question before and after, using a Likert scale to measure how likely they are to purchase your product.

Example: How likely are you to purchase Brooks running shoes in the future?

You can also ask purchase intent questions about where consumers will make their purchase (online or in-store); if online, through which site; and when, (in the next month, 6 months, 12 months) so you can track and predict purchase behavior that will inform the timing and location of your next campaign.

You can run an initial demographic survey to find people who’d be inclined to purchase running shoes–and continue to target that demographic frequently. After you perform your initial brand tracking survey, and you’ve got your first set of data, you should repeat that survey often to note trends over time. Through SurveyMonkey Audience, we can also help you find thousands of qualified respondents.

Rapidly growing companies or companies in a quickly changing market should engage in brand tracking research on a quarterly basis. Companies in other markets should run brand surveys 1-2 times a year. Whichever interval you choose, be sure to stay consistent so you can accurately monitor positive and negative trends–so your next brand advertising campaign will reach the right people at the right time (and send the right message).

Want to learn more about managing your brand’s performance? Visit the Branding and Brand Identity resource page.