What is brand tracking and how can it benefit your business? Ruth Gosling, Insight and Analytics Manager at Mobas, takes a look at what’s involved and how to get started.
As an analytics-driven business working closely with clients to demonstrate the impact of brand marketing, we’re great believers in brand tracking. Whatever category you’re in, and wherever you are in your transformation journey, brand tracking research could play a key role in understanding how your brand is perceived by your customers and whether your marketing is having the impact that you need.
What is brand tracking research?
Brand tracking research (also known as brand health or brand benchmarking research) involves conducting regular surveys with your target audience, to measure awareness of, and attitudes towards, your brand, and how these are changing over time.
Why do brand tracking research?
Brand tracking research enables brands and businesses to:
- Have visibility of how your brand is performing against competitors
- Understand the ongoing impact of marketing and PR activity on your brand
- Improve ROI on your marketing efforts by identifying and focusing on what works (i.e. creatives, messages and marketing channels)
- Identify and respond to any negative brand associations or barriers to engagement
- Measure progress against KPI targets
The world’s most successful brands put brand tracking programmes at the heart of their strategic decision-making. But it’s not just for large, established brands – at Mobas we offer flexible, bespoke brand tracking solutions for businesses of all sizes and stages.
How to conduct brand tracking research
There are a range of approaches available for brand tracking programmes, depending on your objectives and target audience. At Mobas, our team of insight specialists can guide you through the process, identifying the best approach to meet your needs.
Some areas to consider include:
- Who should you include in the research?
You should ideally include a representative sample of your target audience. This may be broad (for example, all UK adults), or specific (for example, financial decision-makers in small businesses). Think about any specific sub-groups you wish to understand within this broader audience, such as particular segments, age groups or regions, and whether you wish to understand brand health among current customers vs. non-customers. Your research partner can advise you on how to design a sample to provide robust insight among these specific audiences.
- What approach should you use for data collection?
Online surveys are the most common way to conduct brand tracking. They’re relatively cost-effective, time-efficient, and offer research participants the flexibility to complete at a time and place that’s convenient for them. Occasionally it may be necessary to use an alternative approach, if your target audience is time-poor and resistant to traditional research (for example, owners and leaders of SMEs).
Online surveys are increasingly being complemented by additional insight sources, such as existing CRM data and social listening tools, to provide deeper insight.
- What should the questionnaire cover?
While there are tried-and-tested brand tracking metrics that have been proven to predict business performance, we work with our clients to ensure that all questions are relevant, tailored and specific to your business objectives.
Some of the common areas to include are:
Brand and comms awareness: looking at unprompted brand awareness, as well as recall of any specific marketing activities and channels, to understand their role in increasing the visibility of your brand.
Brand associations: asking participants to select from a series of statements to identify areas of differentiation for the brand (for example, ‘a brand I trust’, ‘offers great customer service’).
Purchase behaviour: looking at the purchase funnel, through metrics such as consideration, purchase intention and usage.
Demographics: any questions required to identify particular audiences for analysis purposes, such as age, gender, ethnicity and social grade.
Using an experienced insight professional to support you with the questionnaire design is the best way to ensure that the questions are clear, objective and unambiguous, providing a positive experience for participants and delivering high-quality data. At Mobas, our Market Research Society accredited insight team has vast experience in questionnaire design. We also ensure that online surveys are fully mobile-compatible, since around 60% of surveys are now completed on a mobile device.
- How often should you conduct the research?
This depends on several factors, including the budget you have available for the research programme, how often you need data to feed into strategic planning, and the likely pace of change in your category.
If possible, a baseline wave should be conducted prior to starting your marketing activity. This provides a benchmark against which to set targets and monitor progress over time. Subsequent research dips should be timed around key periods of activity in order to understand their impact.
How Mobas can support you with brand tracking
Our in-house insight team has implemented brand tracking programmes for large global brands, as well as smaller brands on a growth journey, across a wide range of sectors including financial services, retail, FMCG, charities and government.
Mobas is a Market Research Society Company Partner, with our Insight and Analytics Manager, Ruth Gosling, a Certified Member of the Market Research Society (CMMRS) and our Brand and Insight Strategist, Dr Matthew Higgs, a Member (MMRS). Company Partner status is an industry-recognised standard and is awarded to insight teams which have been through a rigorous assessment process carried out by industry experts. Choosing a recognised MRS Partner to deliver your insight needs means you can have confidence that your project will be delivered to a high standard, by an experienced team, using the best approach for you.
As research specialists within a brand strategy and marketing agency, we have expertise in delivering stand-alone research projects, and are experienced in creating actionable insight for brand and leadership teams.
We have provided a recent case study to demonstrate the benefit that brand tracking has brought to one of our clients.
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CASE STUDY: FINANCIAL SERVICES BRAND
The challenge:
Mobas is a long-term brand transformation partner for a financial services brand. In a highly competitive market, the brand has ambitious plans to differentiate, raising its profile at a national and local level. Insight is required to understand progress towards this goal on an ongoing basis. The tracking not only shows whether the brand name is recognised, but also the perception of the brand that is being built in the market through organic and paid marketing and the daily working of the team.
The solution:
Mobas designed and implemented a brand tracking programme, to give regular insight on the impact of activity on the brand. The approach consists of:
· A nationally representative omnibus survey, enabling analysis by different regions, ages, income levels and life stages;
· A boost in key regions, providing the brand with robust insight into its core heartland;
· Assigning participants to Experian FSS segments, providing deep additional insight into their behaviours, needs and demographics from a robust data source.
Questions cover brand awareness and associations vs. core national and regional competitors.
The impact:
For the first time, the business has a clear picture of the impact of its activity on brand awareness and of the associations that are being made. The tracking study provides insight into any negative associations which need to be addressed, identifies competitive threats, and monitors progress amongst key target audiences.
This insight is being used by Mobas and our client to adapt future activity, focusing on what works, and maximising future ROI.
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For an informal conversation on how brand tracking can drive your business growth, please email shelby.haslam@mobas.com.
