The most asked question by marketing teams is how to develop a differentiated look and feel for their brand; the second most asked question is how to effectively measure it. Whilst creating a strong brand, new look and feel is definitely one of the most important elements of brand management, making sure you measure and evaluate it is just as important for your long-term success.
So where do you start and how do you determine the right approach?
Well, there are many brand KPIs that can be used in the marketing / sales funnel, but some are better suited than others depending on the various stages. The first question you should ask in any evaluation exercise is what do you want to find out? This simple question will help you determine the most appropriate KPI to use.
Starting at the top of the funnel with awareness - this is where you will be introducing your brand to your target audience for the first time, and so you will want to focus on measuring your potential customer's brand recall. Spontaneous brand awareness, prompted brand awareness and lastly top of mind (TOM) brand awareness can all be used here.
The best way to measure TOM and spontaneous awareness is to use unprompted questions. For example, "When you think about fixed income managers which brands come to your mind?". For prompted awareness, provide a list of brands and ask which ones the potential customer has heard of. Those who mention your brand first provide you with TOM awareness; those who mention your brand unprompted (but not first), provide you with spontaneous awareness; and those who recognise your brand is prompted awareness.
Let's move on to the interest stage. This is where you'll be focusing on building a relationship with your audience, so you will want to find out how easily your brand comes to mind in potential purchase situations. A very simple KPI to use here is the strength of your brand assets.
Measuring the strength of your brand assets focuses on the simple visual recognition of these brand assets e.g. logos, imagery, colours, and taglines. This KPI is measured by asking whether your potential customer recognises particular branding elements and which company they belong to.
Mid-way through the funnel is the consideration stage. Here we focus on whether your potential customers would consider purchasing from your brand. A purchase intent KPI can be used here by simply asking whether your potential customers would consider buying from you. Sometimes the question is that simple!
The penultimate stage of the funnel is where we focus on your customers purchasing from you. So, the two KPIs to use here are sales volume and sales value. As these two KPIs are sales led, they are most likely KPIs which your organisation already measures.
Reaching the final stage of the funnel is where we focus on loyalty - would your new customers recommend you? Here we can use the Net Promoter Score (NPS). This is where you ask your existing clients how strongly, on a scale of 0-10, they would recommend your brand.
Whether you use a third-party vendor to measure your brand, or conduct your own research and analysis, the brand measurement process remains the same. As long as you use the right KPI at the right time, it really is as easy as 1,2,3…