Last updated on May 29th, 2023 at 03:14 pm
“Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time” – Elon Musk.
The fact is brand perception is your business reality. In marketing and sales, your brand perception matters in order to grow your business.
So, what is brand perception and how do we measure it? In today’s post, we are going to cover exactly that. Let’s get into it.
What Is Brand Perception?
The full definition of brand perception is how the public regard, understand or interpret your business brand. It can be a mental impression through senses as well including what they see and hear.
Brand perception could be more direct like what people hear about your business, such as, what they hear from their neighbors or friend. Or, brand perception can also be more indirect, such as their perception when they walk into your building, see employees, or even how they perceive colors and smells.
Ultimately, your brand perception can be made up through the five senses:
- Listening – what people hear about your company.
- Visual – what people see about your company.
- Smell – what do people smell when using your products or services?
- Taste – what is the consumer’s perception of your product’s taste?
- Touch – what does your product or service feel like?
Each of the five senses contributes to the consumers’ emotional feelings toward your brand. The summary of all people’s feelings is your total brand perception.
How Can You Measure Brand Perception?
The easiest and most common way to measure brand perception is through a Net Promoter Score (NPS). A net promoter score is a score measured to gauge someone’s feelings towards a company.
Generally, NPS is asked in the following way:
“On a scale from 1-10, how likely are you to recommend X Company to a friend or colleague?”
Then, the question is followed by buttons from 1 – 10 as shown below.
The average rating is your company’s NPS score. As you can see in the above diagram, NPS scores above 8 are known as promoters. Promoters will actively promote your brand. Directly below promoters are your passives. Passives feel indifferent about your brand and are less likely to promote your brand. Finally, NPS scores below 7 are detractors. These people generally will talk negatively about your brand.
It’s important for companies of all sizes to use NPS surveys to gauge their average brand perception. Then, follow up with customers that are detractors to make improvements.
How To Send NPS Surveys & Collect Results
Sending NPS surveys is typically done through an email or SMS list. It’s important to only email and text people who have opted in.
Common Software To Send Your Surveys
At WolfPack, we like our marketing automation software as you can send mass emails and text messages. However, you can use a mass email system such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, or Send in Blue.
Adding The Survey To Your Emails & Texts
Once you have your chosen software and opted-in email list, you can design your communication. In some cases, you may want to consider adding an incentive to people who respond to your survey, such as a gift card.
We recommend using a short link in your text messages to the survey. In emails, we recommend embedding an image of your NPS survey that is clickable. When users click on the image, it should bring them to the actual survey.
How To Build Your NPS Survey
To build your survey, you can use Google Forms or TypeForm. Qualtrics is another option, however, they tend to be for larger companies and more expensive.
Your NPS survey should include a rating from 1-10. Then, after a user selects their rating, you should include a text box for a user to add additional information to their rating. Typeform has an NPS survey template you can use.
Other Ways To Measure It
Here are a few other ways to measure brand perception.
Focus Groups
Larger companies with a budget can collect results through focus groups. Typically, agencies or their in-house marketing team conducts focus groups. They can require a lot of time and energy as you need to pay people for their time, come up with focus group questions, pay for a focus group facilitator, and collect a good sample of people within your focus group.
Focus groups can be great though as they tend to give more detailed feedback that an NPS survey.
Social Listening
Social listening involves using software, such as Hootsuite or SEMRush to listen in on what people are saying about your brand online. This is usually completed through a marketing agency and they use software to monitor for mentions of your brand online.
Most commonly, social listening is conducted through social media platforms but it can also be on review sites, blogs, or forums.
Conducting a Brand Audit
The final way to measure your brand perception is through a brand audit. A brand audit is conducted by researching primary and secondary target audiences followed by charting your brand perception against competitors. This should dive deep into your brand’s positioning and strategy.
Improving Your Brand Perception
After defining and measuring, you may start to ask how you improve it. Well, you will want to use the research and feedback you received from your NPS surveys, focus groups, social listening tools, and audits to make strategic adjustments externally and internally.
It’s important to remember to use all different senses when trying to increase your brand perception. Here are a few strategies to help you improve your brand perception.
Use Social Media
Social media is like your brand’s voice with the public. Using social media to respond to consumers and showcase your brand identity can help improve consumers’ perceptions.
For example, if someone says something negative about your company, you can respond publicly to them in a professional manner and attempt to resolve their issue.
Change Leadership
Depending on the feedback, you may consider changing up your business’s leadership. While this is a big decision, oftentimes your brand perception is rooted in leadership attitudes as their attitude conveys down to employees and then customers.
Train Employees
Retraining employees or providing additional support on branding can help your team members carry out the business’s brand identity better. Truly, your brand is not just who the CEO is, but the day-to-day functions of the company. Therefore, employees should be thoroughly trained on your company’s mission, vision, and overall brand.
Other Ideas
Your research may also point you to rebrand, change up your messaging, redecorate your retail space, update your employee uniform, or even add different scents in your retail space. Consider looking to your brand development if this is you.
Brand Perception Examples
Chick-Fil-A
My favorite fast food chain uses its brand to the max. Their restaurants are always clean, they carry mouthwash in restrooms, and they charge a premium price. These are just some of the items that convey their brand identity. In another example, their team members are always effectively trained and always follow up their service with a smile and pleasure.
It is clear Chick-Fil-A is the fine dining of fast food.
Cadillac
What comes to mind when you think of Cadillac? With their premium price point and luxury interiors, it’s clear that are going after wealthier individuals. Moreover, their vehicles are used by governments across the globe which showcases they are the chosen vehicle for important people.
Final Thoughts
Brand perception is reality. Begin measuring your brand perception today with a Net Promoter Score survey of your past and current customers.
Use the feedback from your replies to make improvements to your brand. If you want to dig deeper, conduct a brand audit and analyze it against your competitors.
Finally, a better brand, makes it so much easier to scale and grow your business through digital marketing.
Have questions? Reach out to your team by scheduling a consultation and let’s scale your business with digital marketing.
