BULLET POINTS
Advanced Marketing: How to Measure Brand Awareness
Brand awareness measurement is one of the hardest KPI (Key Performance Indicator) in marketing. But, it is important and cannot be ignored. This article will give you all information about how to measure brand awareness, why it is important and free & paid tools.
What is meant by Measuring Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness measurement is a marketing technique to know what people think about your products and services.
The data collected by this measurement can be used to improve products/services, audience retargeting and to achieve goals. Another advantage is; a successful measurement can reduce handsome advertising cost.
Brand Awareness Measurement Importance
According to Bryan Sharp, owner of marketinglawsofgrowth.com, brands gain most of the purchases in a product recall. They collect the data from initial campaigns and use them in retargeting with improvements.
Another example is Coca-Cola who spent about 3.3 billion in marketing all over the world in 2013. These marketing tactics helped them to stand out in the crowd. Now they are at a stage where Coca-Cola brand name will come in your mind when you will think about buying a drink.
Common Mistakes in Brand Awareness Measurement
Brand measurements might look a simple task but actually, it is harder compared to your thinking. Several metrics calculation & combination, effective tools and regular update are important in this procedure.
Following are the most common mistakes that may stop or downgrade your business growth.
- Definition of Awareness – A social manager will define it in terms of social followers and engagement, a salesman will define it in terms of sales and an analytical manager will read it as conversation rate. But, which one is right? The best way is to set a target of measurement. You must have a clear goal for the accuracy of data collection.
- Realistic Approach – Do not expect that a piece of content can give an outstanding result and always use a real-world approach. You have to create content regularly based on funnels and every piece of content has a specific metric & goal.
- Linking Awareness with Sales – Do not expect direct sales from your campaigns. Majority of buyers need some time to take the final decision. The best way is to deploy marketing attribute models.
- Try to Achieve Earlier – Awareness campaigns never give instant results so, do not expect it. If you are getting leads and engagement than you can consider your campaign successful. The best way is to use A/B testing to maximize output.
- Before & After – Regular before and after the measurement is also important. Measure the conversation rate, popular sections and growth rate with and without campaigns.
- Your Toolkit – God tools are very important to supercharge the whole process. Make sure you have all the important tracking tools. I have told some important tools below, take a look.
Experts Tactics for Brand Awareness Measurement
This is the most interesting section that you are waiting for. Below are several ways to track brand awareness.
1. Web Traffic
Traffic measurement is the most common way to track brand awareness. See that how much traffic you gained over time, what were the popular sections and traffic sources. Do not forget to analyze events conversation rate. Finally, start your next campaign based on this data.
It is important to mention here, direct traffic is an indicator of high brand awareness. If you are getting too much direct traffic with less bounce rate than its means that your brand has popularity and people are ready to be your customers.
2. User Search Queries
Use Google Ad & Google Trends to see how much your brand is being searched. Measure the brand growth rate with the help you forecast data cart.
Google Ad tool will provide the other keywords related to your brand. Put those keywords in Google Trends to see the additional details with advanced filters.
3. Social Activities
Unlike the previous two methods, this tactic will give you more accurate and detailed data. On social media platforms, you can read the thoughts of customers as well as the people willing to be your customers. Track them and see what they say.
It will be worthy to see the stats of those who shared your posts and read the thoughts of others on them. Awario social listening tool can help you to track social voice and help you to grow better.
4. Surveys
Asking for reviews from existing customers is a good business approach. Start a survey via email, web, social campaign or other methods and judge the customers’ satisfaction rate. You can also know how people heard to know the most popular way of gaining customers.
5. Backlinks/Referral Traffic
Google Analytics can help you to know what the sources of traffic on your website are. Brand’s awareness always increases with the increase in backlinks or referral.
If you are getting a handsome amount of traffic from a blog than it will be good to get some paid traffic from that blog via sponsored post or an ad.
But before getting the paid traffic from a blog, analyze it and see its popular keywords as well as trust rate. If the blog matches with your brand than you can continue. SEMrush SEO & SEM tool can help you to analyze any site.
6. Online Customer Reviews
No one buys a product or service without reading reviews from existing or previous customers. Your job is to read the reviews on sites like Trust Pilot. If the majority you reviews are good then your brand is on the way of success. Otherwise, note all the negative points and improve your brand.
7. Comparison with Competitors
Do not miss to understand your competitors. You can use social platforms, forums and online reviews site to know what people are saying about your competitors. Do a comparison and conclude that are you providing all the required features to customers.
The 2nd method is to use some tools to spy on your competitors. SEMrush will help you to know how your competitors are getting traffic, what are their referral sources and their search queries.
Which Metrics to Take into Account?
What you should measure to see your brand growth? Following are measurable metrics along with the details of their importance.
1. Volume
It is the very basic part where you see how many times your brand has been mentioned on online platforms such as blogs, social channels and others. The higher the mentioned volume will be the better the brand awareness will.
The higher number of mentions is a good indicator of the brand’s popularity. These mentions are going you to provide traffic that will give leads and sales in further processes.
2. Reach
Reach metric is associated with the audience who has seen your mention regardless of the action they performed. Reach is a better metric compared to volume and an indicator of better awareness.
Here we cannot ignore the role and importance of influencers. As they have a large targeted audience so, they are always a part of marketing strategies.
3. Engagement
Once your brand mention will reach to a person, he/she will perform an action which is counted an engagement. This engagement might be in the form of a post like, a comment, link click or information submission.
Higher engagement is an indicator of good potential. People who engage can be considered as almost ready to buy your product or service.
Brand Awareness Measurement Tools
Today’s marketing and growth are impossible with effective tools. You must be known of all the important tools that can help you to gain more and more customers. Follow are some popular tools that will help you in brand awareness measurement and growth.
1. Google Analytics
This is a free and amazing tool that will help you to analyze your audience. Google Analytics tracks all the users that come on your site with the important details such as their source, landing page, time spend and actions (events).
You can use it to understand your audience behaviours on your site and find traffic sources that are providing leads and sales.
2. Google Trends
Google Trends will help you to see what, why and from where your brand is being searched. I will recommend to first use the Keyword Planner to see the queries and searching the same queries in Google Trends for further details.
3. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner will show you all the keywords connected with your brand, that are being searched on Google and its partner sites.
Google provides suggestions when you type a keyword. These suggestions will help you to understand your audience needs clearly.
4. Facebook Pixel
Just like Google Analytics, This is a tool by Facebook. This tool also tracks users’ activities on your site and apps. Finally, you can use this data in marketing campaigns.
5. SEMrush SEO & SEM
SEMrush is an SEO and marketing tool that will let you analyze any website. You can analyze your top traffic sites and your competitors. It will also show your competitors’ advertising history with additional useful data.
6. Survey Monkey
This is an effective tool to create surveys. It offers free as well as paid plans as per your needs. It will help you to design a survey and represent the data to know your customers’ satisfaction rate.
7. Awario
This is a social tool that helps to track the voices on social platforms. This tool will let you know that what people are talking about your brand and either your business are growing or not.