Brand strength ??? = business growth ??.

Over the course of this year, the marketing team at BrighterMonday has been hard at work on a key element of business that is often surprisingly overlooked when it comes to assessing the growth trajectory of a business.

That element is brand strength.

Brand strength plays a pivotal role in determining the success and growth trajectory of a company. Beyond just a logo or a catchy tagline, a strong brand embodies the essence of a business, shaping its identity and influencing customer perceptions.?

This article, likely to be my last for the year, will explore how brand strength acts as a catalyst for business growth and how we managed to improve our core brand strength metrics in 2023 from the year before while providing as much context as I can.

How was this done?

We launched a brand strength survey through our external PR agent to ensure that the respondents were not biased. The brands included in the survey were the same over the two years of review.

The survey had a mix of four (4) brands in the digital job marketplaces that offered services in Uganda exclusively plus five (5) other brands across different sectors within and outside Uganda to act both as control subjects for the results.

We also used the Google Trends tool to compare the four (4) brands against each other year on year to see if there were any major differences in patterns while also acting as a countermeasure for the survey.

BrighterMonday Uganda registered astonishing growth across the five main metrics we examined for brand strength in 2023 compared to a year ago.

More on that below.

In the simplest terms, brand strength can be looked at as the measure of how well a brand is known and trusted by users. It is based on the intangible aspects of a business, and it can be measured through five key metrics.

Brand Awareness: ??

This looks at the degree to which users can recognize a brand by its name, colors, logo and other forms of identification. Ideally, awareness of the brand may include positive perceptions of the qualities that distinguish it from its competition.?

How did we perform this year? ??

BrighterMonday had a 15 percentage-point increase in brand awareness from last year reaching 66% in 2023. ↗?

This has been a consistently high performing metric and as we approach 10 years in the Uganda market, we still invest around 10 - 15% of our annual marketing on brand building and awareness activities.

Brand Visibility: ??????

Brand visibility can be looked at as the frequency at which your existing and potential users see your brand on social media, search results, and other marketing channels.

While awareness is more about measuring familiarity of your brand, visibility is more about how often your brand is seen by users, especially your target audience.

How did we perform this year? ??

BrighterMonday had a 25 percentage-point increase in brand visibility from last year reaching 36% in 2023. ↗?

From the onset, we decided to activate more partnerships such as the NSSF Expo held in April across multiple universities around the country as well as participating in thought leadership forums such as the Swarm Summit on the Future of Work with a focus on A.I.

We joined the American Chamber of Commerce in Uganda (AmCham), the Financial Technology Service Providers’ Association (FITSPA) & the Human Resource Managers’ Association Uganda (HRMAU) to strengthen our alignment with partners & create a talent ecosystem that supports the respective industries and members.

With the Federation of Uganda Employers (FUE), we continued with our renewed Employer Webinars series which attracted over 500+ registrations and 340 attendees across the year.

We launched two new LinkedIn newsletters throughout the year and currently have more 10k subscribers across both with a focus on job market & career insights.

We also spent around 27% more on our digital advertising across our brand, products and services in 2023 compared to 2022.

Brand Knowledge: ??

This metric looks at the user’s ability to recognize and understand the features, benefits, and value of a brand’s products or services. Succeeding in this can help a brand create a successful and lasting brand which in turn builds customer loyalty over time.

How did we perform this year? ??

BrighterMonday had an 18 percentage-point increase in brand knowledge from last year reaching 53% in 2023. ↗?

This year we collaborated with our product team on a number of campaigns including the Job Matching campaign that introduced our new A.I matching tools for employers and job seekers.

This campaign enabled us to re-energize our messaging and positioning as the leading job matching platform in the country. Together with our customer experience team, we also collaborated on launching our WhatsApp updates and more initiates dedicated to extending user education of our brand & services.

Next year, plans of launching our #GetHired series to give users more insights on how to use the platform, complete their profiles, apply for jobs and so much more as well as utilizing our WhatsApp & YouTube channels as delivery platforms.

Brand Usage: ????

In just about any marketplace, a strong brand helps a business stand out from the competition. The best way to understand if your brand is delivering on this is by looking at usage. How often do users actually use your brand over your competitors or rank you ahead of them to satisfy their need?

That is what this metric focuses on.

How did we perform this year? ??

BrighterMonday had a 27 percentage-point increase in brand usage from last year reaching 48% in 2023. ↗?

Our product team launched the new revamped employer user experience, our new A.I matching score and more importantly, the improved alerts which enable users to create more customized job alerts.

We also launched our new Professional CV paid-for-services to support users beyond just placement but also the entire career journey including a complete revamp of the CVs, cover letters and LinkedIn profiles.

All these improvements have tremendously contributed to our growing trend in usage and there is a lot more in store for 2024!

Brand Recommendation: ??

Recommendations from other users are the leading influencers on future potential user’s behavior toward a brand. This is the metric that focuses on brand loyalty, user experience all which translates to whether they are willing to recommend a brand to another user depending on their experiences.

How did we perform this year? ??

BrighterMonday had a 30 percentage-point increase in brand recommendation from last year reaching 42% in 2023. ↗?

This was the single largest increase year on year and that is with good reason.

Earlier in the year, we supported the product team during the jobseeker discovery survey and made some astounding discoveries of our own. The insights from the focus group propelled the marketing team to launch what I consider the most important campaign I have ever worked on in my career.

We launched a Talent Spotlight campaign to showcase the success stories from our past users who had managed to get a job through our platform. This campaign (still on-going) has been a revelation with so many heartwarming stories shared including some striking details of the often-grueling career & job-hunting journey.

Since the launch of the campaign, we have seen an additional 70k impressions across our social media platforms, thousands of clicks, engagements and more than 200 story submissions (the good and bad)!

It has so far been our most engaging content and for me personally, it has been a remarkable campaign where we are able to see the faces of the people whose lives we transformed in small and big ways!

So how does all this lead to business growth?

Brand surveys and several other such surveys give us a good indication of how the brand is doing, how it is perceived and the most persistent issues; FYI, it's employer feedback to job applicants (that’s a topic for another day ??).

Most importantly, it also indicates the trustworthiness of a brand. Users, businesses, partners and just about everyone transacts with a brand they trust.

BrighterMonday prides itself on this and continually works to grow and retain the trust it has established.

This year alone, we have unlocked more partnerships with fellow respectable brands and successfully seen a number of key metrics improve from a business perspective such as our return on investment on marketing spend (ROI), up 107% from last year.

Revenue from marketing deals is up 105% year on year and the average revenue per deal is up more than 230% from last year.

This is the kind of growth that can be generated from a steadily growing & strong brand therefore, for all marketers, business strategists and leaders, keep an eye on your brand strength in 2024.

We can compare notes next year.

Happy New Year! ??