What is Brand Perception and How Can You Measure It?

What is Brand Perception?

Most of an organization’s brand perception can be attributed to what the company says and how it says it. If you believe this then you may need to revisit your interpretation.

In reality, brand perception is what consumers believe a product or service represents and not what the company owning the brand says it does. Brand perception is created through customer use, experience, functionality, reputation, and word of mouth (WOM) recommendation- whether on social media or face to face.

When a brand delivers or exceeds customer expectations, it has the potential to establish a whole lifetime of loyalty. The biggest reason consumers cite for their loyalty to a brand is because they love the product. Giving out good deals and having great customer service comes next.

But until target customers have experienced a product, believed the brand promise, and developed a sufficiently positive perception to buy (and/or rebuy) it, a brand will not grow.

With an average person receiving up to 10,000 brand messages a day, messaging must stand out in order to make an impression in a crowded marketplace.

Why is Brand Perception Important?

Customers matter, and so do their opinions. Positive brand perception means consumers are more likely to choose a particular business over a competitor. It also means that they are more likely to bring new customers to the business since they will refer friends and family to their favorite brands.

Conversely, however, negative brand perception means they’re more likely to choose a competitor — and tell other potential customers why they didn’t choose you.

In other words, brand perception impacts your bottom line — a lot.

Companies often assume they know how their customers feel about them. After all, they talk to them and help them solve problems daily. Based on these interactions alone, companies tend to inflate brand perception, believing it to be more positive than it really is.

According to a Bain and Company study, even though 80% of companies say they provide great experiences only about 8% of customers agree. By measuring reliably, companies get an honest look at the factors driving and killing brand loyalty.

Measure the Uniqueness of a Brand

Every brand wants to lead the way in delivering quality products and fantastic customer service; what makes your brand different? This is where open text feedback comes into its own — customers can write exactly what they feel about the brand, and the right analytics software will analyze their words, grouping them by topic to identify the strongest associations. You’ll be able to track opinions specific to your brand.

Business is built on customer relationships, and brand perception sets the tone. Today’s consumers share their opinions and experiences widely, and their peers trust them when it comes time to buy or pass. Consumers are looking for better experiences and are willing to switch brands until they find one that meets their needs. Which is why creating and maintaining a unique brand matters.

How can companies monitor and understand consumer brand perception when they’re looking at it from inside the box? We’ll cover some tools and methods that help brands capture it.

Brand Perception as a Sensory Experience

A brand is more than just the sum of its products. It has its own, carefully-crafted personality that represents its parent company’s vision, mission, and/or culture. It’s not surprising then that the brand as a personality can jibe with customers on a personal level — a mental impression, or perception. A customer mentally processes sensory messages from a brand to create their own perception, and marketers take full advantage by exposing it to all the senses:

• Visual: Instantly-recognizable logos and high budget, entertaining commercials. Think Coca-Cola and Nike for example.
• Auditory: Catchy musical jingles or catchphrases that make their way into popular culture.
• Olfactory: Our sense of smell has a remarkable ability to trigger memories and emotions.
• Taste: Free samples or special offers to taste new products.
• Emotional: Heartstring-tugging/Christmas TV ads.

How to measure brand perception

As brand perception is an essential component in building brand equity, it is important to measure it regularly, track it over time, and identify what drives improvements. There are several things a company can do to measure how customers perceive a brand and highlight what areas need attention in order to improve overall perception.

1. Focus groups and forums

Whilst many people may turn their noses up at the thought of using focus groups and forums, particularly in the age of technology, getting small groups of people together, either face to face or remotely allows a company to hear the positives and negatives of a brand from the very people that matter — the customers. Companies can gauge how customers feel, and develop a genuine understanding of what works well and what doesn’t.

Online brand forums can be useful in more complex supply chains. For example, in a B2B2C chain, a manufacturer may find it hard to reach their end-user customer, as they deal directly only with the distributors or retailers. An online forum with customers fills in this knowledge gap, informing product development, and strengthening the brand.

2. Surveys

Surveys help a company or brand to understand who their customers are and what they think of a brand. They are both simple and painless to do, so customers with an opinion (both good and bad) can respond to targeted questions and say what’s on their mind.

Customer surveys are one of the best tools you can use to measure brand perception. There are a variety of survey types that capture feedback at critical moments of the customer journey. Here are just a couple of examples:

• A customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey measures customer health and sentiment by asking customers targeted questions. It’s usually sent after a specific customer experience — like a purchase, customer support interaction, or store visit.
• Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) measures customer loyalty with a simple question: How likely are you to recommend us? The NPS survey is typically sent at specific stages of the customer lifecycle and is a fantastic way to identify brand advocates or brand detractors.

3. Social Media Monitoring

If a company or brand really wants to know what people are thinking about them the best place to start is by listening. Whilst it may seem daunting as online communities are ever-expanding and the web is dense, there are several tactics that can be used to measure brand perception efficiently. People don’t hold back on social media, so tracking mentions of and reactions to a brand across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to analyze the performance of social messaging can prove extremely rewarding. Knowing what people are saying about a brand, allows for a rapid response and may enable faster growth and engagement across social channels.

The best tools to use for Social listening have a single hub dashboard that monitors a brand’s social presence and can reveal insights such as:

• Which social media platforms are growing the brand most (and least)
• The type of content that gets the most views
• The number of mentions and shout-outs of the brand, often in real-time
• Reviews and comments
• Influencer reach
• Which paid content performs best

It should be noted that it is common for current and prospective customers to scan social media interactions to get a sense of a brand’s customer care standards before making a purchase. Companies, therefore, need to make sure they read and respond to all comments, especially the bad ones, in a timely manner.

Final Word

Brand perception can often be a mystery to companies, but it doesn’t have to be. Companies can monitor brand perception and affect enormous change by combining customer surveys with the other tools and processes above.

An effective customer feedback program is an invaluable asset providing a constant stream of useful insights from the people that have the greatest impact on a company’s success: customers. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how audiences engage and react to a brand, to ensure a company remains on the front foot.