Understanding a company’s brand equity in relation to its competitors is crucial to its achievement. It is essential to know whether it is expanding, declining or reducing and the reason for these shifts (or the absence of). To have a complete view of your brand’s reputation is not always as straightforward as it might appear. Many factors affect the quality of your brand’s image and its perception in the course of time. This is why every company that invests in a large amount of marketing effort should have a brand tracking strategy in place. Find out more about the advantages and disadvantages of conducting brand tracking research.
Brand trackers are a type of survey which is conducted on regular intervals (e.g. each quarter or annually, or constantly) which assesses a firm’s and its competition’s performance. This research lets you constantly understand all the aspects that affect awareness, consideration, purchasing and even retention.
Pros
A better understanding of your Brand and the Competition
Continuously reviewing your brand’s performance gives you to gain a thorough understanding of your brand’s overall performance in the marketplace. If you track your market share, awareness as well as profits and retention rates and reasons for why they are at the level that they are.
Understanding KPIs, Performance and the Goals
What can you tell whether your public relations efforts are effective? Each company has specific metrics they analyze to identify the extent of success. Brand trackers can be used to check whether your marketing is meeting goals regularly.
Brand tracking includes the use of performance-based questions. These typically include measures like unaided or assisted recall perception, purchase intent and the likelihood of recommending.
Comparisons Over Time
Trackers are the snapshot of a brand’s ongoing health. What makes research on brand tracking effective is the ability to distinguish what might impact your company’s performance. For example, if it were negative factors (e.g. negative publicity, a crisis) and something good ( the development of a product, or a excellent commercial) you will get feedback at the present moment, and then you can compare it with previous results.
Continuity
The process of developing brand tracking research requires time, but keeping the survey up for the next time is much easier following the first research. While certain questions may alter from iteration of the survey to address specific issues in the near future however, the majority of questions remain the same. This consistency simplifies the process of analyzing and understanding your brand’s equity.
Competitive Analysis
The main ingredient in any solid brand tracker is the analysis of competition. The brand is compared to its main competitors to determine who is most distinctive and how. Understanding how your competition’s image develops is insightful and essential to the brand’s strategy. It can also provide a picture of how your competition may be planning their strategy at a specific moment, or how their plans evolve in time.
Cons
You must be consistent
Trackers should be conducted regularly. Some brands might notice that there isn’t much of a change from quarter quarter, and they only monitor whenever something is wrong. No matter what the cadence may be, consistency is essential. If too long has passed, there could be a variety of factors that can cause different outcomes.
Don’t Get Overly Complex
It is essential to keep trackers organized and easy. If you are evaluating too many competitors and asking too in-depth questions can cause boredom during surveys. Additionally, the results could be too deep into the details. So, the end user isn’t looking at what the big picture is says.
Too generic
Many research companies use common tracker templates. Provoke Insights is not the one-size-fits-all solution. It is vital to ensure that the tracker is considering the company’s specific goals when designing the tracker. In addition, the research should consider the specific requirements of the industry and current trends. For instance, certain sectors are completely transactional online however, other industries that require where sales in person may be more crucial. Trackers must be aware of this type of behavior into consideration.