Many people mistakenly believe that brand awareness is nebulous and immeasurable. That’s not true, though. Measuring it isn’t that tricky. The best way to do it is through market research surveys for brand recall. You have to keep a few things in mind:
Don’t name specific brands upfront
If you ask respondents leading questions about brands, whether you list yourself or the Pepsis of the world, that thought will now exist in their heads where it might not have before. To get organic results, don’t name specific brand names. If your business is the first one they come up with, you can conclude you are highly top of mind compared to others.
Keep questions open-ended
Again, avoid questions that lead consumers’ minds toward a particular product, region, or attribute, which can muddy your data.
Ask for lists
Part of your survey should include lists of brands in your category. If you only ask for one brand, you might get the Kleenex response and nothing else, which isn’t useful. Instead, ask for lists. Your company might not come up before REI, but a list will tell you whether it’s coming up.
Treat rankings seriously (share of search)
The ranking of companies will give you several different metrics. The top company ranking is a straight percentage … who has the highest awareness? Afterward, you can gain more subtle data by weighting companies according to their position in the list.
Don’t forget qualitative data
It’s not all about the numbers. Once you get the unprompted responses, conducting interviews to get more specific information about your company to measure top of mind awareness is fine.
Pay attention to social media reach
To understand how your business is positioned in the mind of your target market, it’s essential first to assess social media presence and reach. By analyzing a variety of social platforms, you can gain a strong baseline for understanding which channels and content resonate with your audience.
For example, if you’re a pet store, you will want to evaluate the reach on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Or if you’re selling business-to-business products, then LinkedIn will be ideal for measuring reach. With this information, you can decide strategically which channels and content are most valuable for driving engagement with your target audience.
Look at your Brand mentions
Take into account how often your brand is being mentioned across the internet. Pay attention to social media comments, articles, blogs, user-generated content, and any other marketing communications channel where your target audience might be present. The more often your brand is mentioned, the better top of mind awareness you have. Additionally, this represents an opportunity to assess your business’s authority across the internet and how well your efforts of building brand awareness are doing.
Check Paid media reach
Online paid advertising is one of the most effective ways to build brand awareness. Adding paid media ensures your brand is being exposed to the right audience. You also drive traffic to your website that can easily be converted into sales. With paid media, you can avoid many of the pitfalls associated with organic advertising and gain valuable insights into what resonates with your target audience. Frequently measure awareness and how your brand is doing regarding paid media reach.
Evaluate Branded Search Results Volume
Lastly, an excellent way to measure top of mind awareness is by using an SEO tool and looking at how your branded search volume is performing. Ideally, businesses with high brand rank indicate they excel at being top of mind as more users perform organic searches to look for them.
