Imagine your brand is your baby – a real-life human being. Your main worry would be to keep them healthy and strong and ensure they grow beautifully. Read for your brand health-
Your brand has particular traits that make the public like or dislike it. Your business has to contend with your targeted audience being aware of its characteristics and some people having no clue what it does or sells. Your brand is expected to serve the market’s needs, take a stand for the values it promotes, and contribute to the local community. You may think that it’s a lot to ask of a brand, but this is exactly what your public expects, especially if you’re running a small business and competing with the big dogs in the industry. A series of small things impact your brand’s overall health and in the present competitive market, how healthy your brand is makes the difference between sink or swim.
You know how a healthy kid should look like, but how can you tell if your brand is in good condition? This article discusses the subject and helps you understand how to keep your business in tip-top shape.
What is brand health?
The term brand health may confuse you. Does it have anything to do with online threats, viruses, and malware? Is it a new buzzword? Should you call a doctor?
According to some specialists, it’s an unfortunate term. But it’s used to refer to a set of metrics that show how well your brand performs (not your business, for that, you review the sales numbers).
You can view brand health as how your business delivers on its promises to the audience. The more satisfied buyers are with your services, the healthier your brand is. Therefore, the closer the experience you provide is to the promise your company makes, the better its health is.
Running a healthy brand delivers memorable, consistent, and unique experiences for its clients. Your clients feel an emotional connection to your brand and can easily identify your products from your competitors.
Why should you measure brand health?
It’s crucial to overview your brand’s health because it pinpoints its weaknesses and strengths. Should you focus your efforts on enhancing your reputation? Should you try to get the word out about your business?
Only your brand health metrics can tell you what your business needs in order to strive. It’s crucial to measure your brand’s health to gain marketing insights and identify the right path to success.
The business’ sales numbers tell a different story, so you need to unlock all data to determine what steps to take to iterate, grow your business, and stand out on the market.
Brand health metrics you can use
The primary metrics that allow you to measure your brand health are:
– Brand awareness. Use a social media monitoring program to determine when your brand is mentioned, and conversation surrounding your services happens. You should look for data such as (Where does your audience talk about you? Which cities? Which social media platform? Which website?). When you read news about the health of different brands, brand awareness is the first metric mentioned because it impacts marketing campaigns, product launches, and most marketing efforts.
– Brand reputation. It’s essential to know what the public is saying about your company. Break the mentions into neutral, positive and negative to understand all details and determine the overall opinion.
– Brand positioning. What do your clients associate with your brand? Does it inspire them to engage in a movement? You need to perform a brand health tracking study to determine if your public understands the message behind your brand’s mission. Nike, Tesla, and Apple have a clear brand positioning.
– Employee engagement. The more engaged your staff is with your brands, the more they advocate for it. On the other hand, if they’re dissatisfied, they can start an HR scandal that ruins your reputation.
– Share of voice. It would help if you determined how well your company performs compared to your competitors. Monitor your brand and competitors’ evolutions to find out where you stand.
How to tell if your brand is healthy?
There are several methods to measure brand health, but the most effective are:
– Client feedback. Your public makes your brand awareness and reputation. It’s within their power to make or break your positive reputation. To gather feedback from your clients, you can conduct regular interviews. Find out what your public likes and dislikes about your brand, how their perception has changed over the years, and why they choose your services. Besides interviews, you can also rely on feedback forms to gather information.
– Social listening. Measure your brand reputation, brand awareness, and share of voice on social media (social media platforms, forums, blogs, groups, news sites). Use a social media monitoring tool to find mentions of keywords related to your business on the web and analyse the mentions to get the big picture.
– Surveys and focus groups. When you need answers to a specific question, use surveys and focus groups to gather in-depth information from people who have a clear understanding of your brand.
How to heal your sick brand?
Did research show that your brand has lost its way? Here is a 3-point game plan to help you get it back on track.
- Diagnose the issue. Your brand has probably shown symptoms of decline for some time, so you need qualitative and quantitative data to gasp the issue’s extent.
- Take action and set new goals. Now that you know what triggered your brand’s atrophy, you can develop a plan and set turnaround goals to improve its performance.
- Measure the progress. The only way to determine if your efforts are paying off is to check the metrics and measure improvement regularly.
Having a healthy and strong brand can keep your business ahead of the competition, so it’s essential to find out if it performs well and how delighted your customers are with the products and services you deliver.
