In the ever-evolving landscape of marketing, understanding the health and performance of your brand is paramount. To navigate the complexities of the modern market, we rely on a suite of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to make informed decisions. However, the challenge lies in determining which metrics hold the most value and which ones truly drive brand growth.
In this post, we will delve into essential categories of brand metrics and KPIs, offering a detailed exploration of each. Specifically, we will cover external analytics that can be collected via survey methodologies, rather than focus on internal consumer metrics. These metrics will provide the foundation for focusing your analytical approach on what matters most—tracking and building your brand over time. We'll cover brand funnel metrics, brand and product loyalty metrics, and advanced brand metrics, each playing a crucial role in your brand's growth. By aligning these metrics with your brand's unique goals and customer journey, you can gain data-backed insights to steer your brand toward remarkable success. Let's begin our journey!
Brand Funnel Metrics: Navigating the Customer Journey
The brand funnel is a dynamic framework that maps how customers progress through the stages of brand awareness, consideration, and eventual purchase. Yet, each brand's journey is distinct, demanding tailored metrics to measure its progress and impact. To embark on this exploration, we must start by defining your brand's specific touchpoints and conversions, then identifying the metrics that offer the most insight at each stage. For a more detailed explanation of how to tailor the brand funnel to your brand’s specific touch points, check out our introduction to brand metrics for business growth.
Awareness
In the awareness stage, it's crucial to grasp unaided and aided brand awareness, revealing the spontaneous mention and recognition of your brand among your target audience.
- Unaided brand awareness quantifies how many individuals in your target market can recall your brand without any prompting.
- Aided brand awareness is a weaker metric, but easier to field and analyze. This metric measures the recognition of your brand when presented alongside a list of your competitors.
By comparing these two metrics you can understand the memorability of your brand and its position in the market.
For many younger brands, awareness is the most difficult part of the funnel to grow as it requires a solid understanding of where your consumers are and the capital to get your brand messaging to those places. Typically, newer brands spend the bulk of their resources on making the best product for their target audience, leaving little for research on how to reach their target audience and encourage them to consider that product. However, before buyers can even consider your product they must be aware of your brand.
Consideration
The next stage of the funnel is the consideration phase—this is where you can get a read on whether buyers who are aware of your brand consider purchasing your products relative to the other brands of which they are aware. The two most compelling metrics at this stage include overall consideration and preference.
- Consideration rates reflect the percentage of people who actively include your brand in their initial consideration set when evaluating options. High rates indicate that you make the cut in the early vetting phase.
- Brand preference, on the other hand, measures the percentage of customers who consider your brand as their first choice when compared to your competitors. This metric offers a glimpse into your brand's share of voice in the minds of consumers.
Purchase
When we reach the purchase stage, many internal metrics will be helpful for projecting the long term health of your brand. However, survey methods can be used to assess your brand’s sales relative to competitors, allowing you to gauge where your organization ranks among consumers. By targeting a random and representative sample of buyers in your brand’s market, you can assess how your brand ranks on two important metrics: single and repeat purchase rates.
- Single purchase rates specifically assess the percentage of those who have considered your brand in a past timeframe have followed through with a purchase. It’s unwise (and unfair) to compare your brand against others in terms of overall sales, since marketing budgets to raise awareness are not equal. Instead, it’s important to focus on conversion rates: For those who are aware of your brand and would consider making a purchase, what percentage actually follow through? Low conversion can be telling about your brand’s sales pipeline and the effectiveness of consumer touchpoints.
- Besides general purchase rates, it’s also important to assess repeat purchase rates—what percentage of buyers come back to your product? This metric can illuminate customer satisfaction above and beyond direct questions. Assessing the rate of repeat purchase is also important for future sales projections as the most reliable income for most brands comes from repeat buyers.
Carefully tracking both initial and repeat purchase rates relative to competitors provides invaluable perspective on your brand's sales funnel effectiveness. Use these metrics to diagnose deficiencies and capitalize on strengths across the end-to-end journey.
Brand and Product Loyalty Metrics: Strengthening Customer Relationships
While consideration to purchase conversion rates provide a glimpse into customer satisfaction, there are a multitude of loyalty metrics that offer a window into the strength of your brand's relationships with customers. These metrics gauge customer satisfaction, loyalty, and attachment to your brand.
Net Promoter Score
Net promoter score (NPS) is a key loyalty metric that reflects the percentage of customers who are likely to recommend your brand to others. NPS is calculated by asking customers to rate their likelihood to recommend your brand on a scale from 0 to 10. Those who score 9 or 10 are considered promoters, while those who score 0 to 6 are detractors. Subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters gives your NPS score. A high NPS indicates a satisfied and loyal customer base. Tracking this score over time helps you gauge customer sentiment and identify potential shifts in the perceived quality and value of your offerings.
Brand Preference
Brand preference share measures the percentage of customers who consistently choose your brand as their favorite or first choice when making a purchase. This metric offers insights into your brand loyalty, which can be tracked against competitors. Strong brand preference share demonstrates that your products or services resonate as go-to options for consumers.
Product Preference
Product loyalty survey questions provide insight into customer attachment to your brand's offerings, particularly their willingness to switch products based on factors like pricing, quality, availability, or other attributes. Strong product loyalty scores demonstrate resilience and attachment to your brand's offerings. This loyalty buffer provides the freedom to carefully evolve your product offerings while retaining your existing customer base.
Tracking these loyalty metrics over time and across customer cohorts helps you understand the strength of your brand's value proposition and make necessary adjustments to maintain lasting connections with your customers.
Advanced Brand Metrics: Looking Beyond the Horizon
For a more comprehensive understanding of brand performance, advanced metrics offer deeper insights. These metrics provide a forward-looking perspective and guide your strategy in the ever-changing market landscape.
Forecasting Models
Brand forecasting models use statistical analysis to predict future brand KPI performance. They take into account past campaigns and external market conditions, offering visibility into what lies ahead. This forward-looking approach helps you anticipate market trends and prepare for future challenges and opportunities.
Brand Trackers
Brand trackers conduct ongoing brand surveys at regular intervals, such as monthly or quarterly. These surveys assess many of the key brand metrics discussed above, allowing you to identify trends over time and connect changes in brand health with external and internal factors. This ongoing monitoring enables you to stay agile and make data-driven decisions as your brand evolves.
Brand Asset Evaluators
Brand value models, such as Gradient’s tool Periscope, quantify brand equities, providing a comprehensive view of your brand's overall strength in the minds of your customers. Periscope assesses which attributes are most important for consideration and purchase rates and where your brand currently ranks across the attributes. Moreover, this tool allows you to project increases in consideration and purchase rates based on possible changes to perceptions of your brand across attributes.
These valuations serve as diagnostics and inform investment decisions and growth potential. By understanding your brand's value in the market, you can make strategic decisions that align with your brand's long-term objectives. Periscope also offers a guide for developing marketing campaigns that specifically target what your customers care most about. The impact of these campaigns can be monitored through longitudinally tracking your brand KPIs via brand trackers.
While advanced metrics may be more complex to implement, they provide powerful diagnostic tools that enable you to navigate your brand's journey effectively, particularly in the face of market fluctuations.
Want to learn more about Periscope? Simply reach out to us here.
Crafting Your Brand's Journey
When designing your brand measurement approach, it's vital to choose metrics that align with your specific goals, customer journey, and brand relationships. Rather than fixating on vanity metrics, focus on the indicators that genuinely empower your strategic decision-making. The numbers that matter most are those that drive your brand forward and unlock its full potential.
If you're curious about which brand metrics are most valuable for your unique situation or need assistance in creating a tailored measurement approach, we're here to help.
Are you ready to unlock the data and insights that will reveal your brand’s full potential? Let’s collaborate.
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