What do you do if your brand awareness and recognition are difficult to track and measure?

In my opinion, you can track brand recognition and its achievements only by knowing your goals; if your goal is to provide outsourcing services for more well-known brands, and you successfully do this, increasing the company’s profits and staff, then we can say that you are successfully meeting your goals and in your circles your lawyer has fame. If your goal is the broad masses, a large target audience, then the goal is different, which means the approaches have changed and the assessment of the recognition of your brand has changed.

In my opinion, when brand awareness and recognition are difficult to track and measure, focusing on key strategies is essential. Firstly, define clear objectives and establish specific goals and metrics. Utilize surveys and research to gauge brand recall and familiarity among your audience. Monitor online presence, track brand mentions, and assess share of voice compared to competitors. Conduct brand recall studies and evaluate brand equity through customer perception surveys. Invest in brand tracking tools for comprehensive insights, and establish feedback loops with customers for qualitative insights. Lastly, evaluate market performance indicators like sales revenue and market share.

Clearly defining your brand goals is like charting your course; it gives you direction and helps you navigate through the stormy seas of uncertainty.

S.E.E.: Survey, Engage, Evaluate Survey: Conduct regular surveys to measure brand recall, recognition, and association among your target audience. Use simple and engaging questions to gather quantitative and qualitative data. Engage: Actively engage with your audience across various channels, including social media, events, and customer feedback platforms. Monitor conversations, mentions, and interactions related to your brand to gauge its visibility and sentiment. Evaluate: Analyse the data collected from surveys and engagement metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of your brand awareness efforts. Look for trends, patterns, and areas for improvement to refine your strategies.

One thing I've found helpful is to clearly identify what behaviors you're wanting to encourage through your brand work. Do you want more branded search volume? More social follows? More engagement & responses? Increased at bats? Ad clicks? The list can be long and diverse. The point being that what you report on should be justified by the behavior you want to see from your target audience. Brand awareness is tricky, as you're basically going from shopping to renting to buying real estate in the mind of each individual within your ideal audience. This will help you put more purpose behind each initiative prior to even choosing your metrics. What mental conclusions are you stimulating? What's the associated ideal action/behavior?

Monitor social media platforms for brand mentions, hashtags, and conversations related to your brand. Tools like social listening platforms can help you track and analyze brand sentiment, reach, and engagement. Look for trends, mentions from influencers, and user-generated content that can indicate brand awareness and recognition.

Track web traffic to your site, clicks on ads, and engagement on socials. Hootsuite and Sprout Social are my favorites due to their extensive analytics. Utilize social listening software to see what people say about your brand online. Set up a way to collect data on your NPS through email, surveys or in person. Your NPS is determined by (% of people who would recommend)-(% of people who would NOT recommend)

Consider conducting brand tracking studies that assess key brand metrics over time. These studies typically include a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. By measuring metrics like brand recall, recognition, perception, and preference, you can track changes in brand awareness and recognition.

Embrace the spirit of trial and error, tweaking your strategies until you strike gold and unearth the hidden treasures of brand awareness.

When tracking elusive brand awareness, it's akin to chasing shadows in the dark. However, by setting clear goals and embracing a mindset of experimentation and optimization, you can shed light on the mystery and uncover the true reach of your brand.