What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness, although a relatively easy metric to track at one level, is something that not all brands keep track of despite the incredible value it has for brands.
It represents how familiar your target market is with your brand and how well they recognise it. It is vital when marketing your company, from new businesses entering the market to more established companies as well.
At Spark Market Research we are experts in analysing and tracking brand awareness. We can help you find out through a variety of research techniques what your target audience knows and think about your brand. Get in touch today to find out how our experts can help you.
What’s the difference between aided and unaided brand awareness?
We are able to examine brand awareness through two different lenses: aided and unaided. The measure you prefer to use will depend largely on the size of your company.
Unprompted brand awareness
This means consumers are able to recall your brand without a prompt, when given a cue. This is generally the category of products. You can use this metric to assess how near to the ‘top of mind’ your brand is. This is the place you want to be: being top of mind means your brand is ‘famous’ within it’s category – that is, according to Byron Sharp’s theory of how brands grow, one of the key metrics driving brand success.
Promoted brand awareness
This is when consumers recognise your brand when prompted with a list of brand names or logos. It’s often the case that the bigger the brand is, the more likely consumers are able to remember it unprompted. However, some small brands can have cut through against larger brands if they have an engaged userbase.
The importance of measuring brand awareness
There are a number of reasons why you should be measuring and aiming to improve your brand’s awareness.
- Helps market share
If consumers already know about your brand, they are more likely to come straight to you.. A comprehensive brand awareness campaign is an excellent way to prepare your brand for the future and to cement it in consumers minds.
- Improves brand perception
Brand perception isn’t just consumers knowing about you, it’s about how your brand makes them feel. Think about it this way: if lots of people know about you, but none of them care about you, then they don’t have any use. While building brand awareness, think of perception at the same time. How do you want them to feel about you?
- Builds trust
Have you ever asked a friend for their opinion on a brand or product? Everyone has! You’re more likely to go with a product or service if they come recommended through a trusted friend or family member: you’ll have more confidence in them. That’s what you want for your brand.
- Useful for lead building
Lead building becomes easier if consumers have heard about your brand before. They won’t feel like popping up out of nowhere, if they have heard about you and what you offer before.
- Drives traffic
Effective brand awareness campaigns will naturally drive organic traffic to your website. If you’re the first company a consumer thinks of when they are considering a new product, they are much more likely to have a look at your website to find out more.
- Increases sales
Studies have shown that customers are more likely to buy from high-awareness brands, in spite of any actual quality or price differences. This is why it’s important to be aware of three different aspects of brand awareness: your name, your product offering and brand attributes (what sets you apart from competitors).
- Can create better content
Creating better brand-awareness is a win-win, as it will help you create better marketing campaigns in turn. As more consumers get to know your business, you will get access to more people, their data and their habits. This will help you tailor your marketing efforts, content etc depending on the target audience.
- It spreads
Customers themselves are incredible marketers without even trying. Someone who likes your brand, your products or services is likely to talk about it – whether that’s online or in person. They can even unintentionally recommend you by liking or interacting with your social media pages.
How to measure brand awareness
So you know all the reasons why it’s important to measure your brand awareness, but how do you actually go about measuring it? You may need to modify them to see fit, as every brand is different.
- Check your social media followers
Your social media followers can give you a broad sense of your reach and popularity as a brand. You can assume that people like or follow your brand because they are interested in it, and it also means they’re more likely to see and interact with your content regularly.
Look at the reach of each post, and use it as a metric to plan future ones for optimal brand awareness. For example, if posts at a certain time of day get a higher reach – that’s when you should be posting!
- See how your content is performing
Shares and likes are a great metric for valuable insights, helping you spot trends that can help with your brand awareness strategy. It’s vital to know what content has been working on your platforms, whether that’s blog posts, video or social content. Take a look at the analytics tools of your social media profiles, as the majority of them will have detailed data on how each of your posts perform.
- Launch a brand awareness survey
One of the best ways to track brand awareness is through surveys. Online surveys available to large consumer groups are one of the best ways to specifically measure brand awareness. Make sure you have a clear strategy when you are putting the survey together: what is it you want to know? Spark are experts at collecting and analysing quantitative data – get in touch to find out how we can help.
Download our ‘How to Measure Brand Awareness’ Infographic below!
‘Measure Brand Awareness’ Infographic
A little help from Spark
At Spark MR we can help you utilise metrics to measure brand awareness.
We have an excellent balance of research specialisms and expertise, having worked in all sorts of industries from finance to retail and health and wellbeing. Get in touch today to chat to one of our friendly experts to find out how we can help.
