There’s no doubt that brand recognition can help bring in more sales and profits for a company, especially when it’s done right. Consider three exceptionally well-known brands: Apple, which became the first trillion-dollar U.S. company; Disney, whose theme parks are showing record-setting growth in 2018, despite raising prices; and Nike, which saw a 31% spike in online sales after the launch of a new campaign.

Of course, brand recognition alone isn’t enough to determine a company’s success. Sears, for example, filed for bankruptcy protection in October, and Toys R Us closed its doors last June. All of these companies had great brand recognition. So what separates the companies seeing major growth from the ones going out of business?

In order to measure the success of your branding efforts, you need to set some clear objectives and goals from the outset. This will help you to determine what metric or metrics you need to track in order to gauge success. Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Drive more website traffic? Boost sales or leads? Whatever your goal may be, make sure it is specific, measurable and achievable.

Once you have your goal in mind, you can start to think about how you will measure it. Here are some common metrics that businesses use to track the success of their branding efforts:

-Website traffic
-Social media engagement
-Leads or sales
-Customer satisfaction
-Number of brand mentions
-Media coverage
-Change in brand perception

Each business will have different KPIs, (key performance indicators), that they deem important to track, but these are some of the most common ones.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these metrics and how you can go about measuring them…

Website traffic

If one of your goals is to drive more traffic to your website, then you need to start by looking at your website analytics. This will give you an overview of how many people are visiting your site and where they are coming from. If you see an increase in web traffic after launching a new marketing campaign, then you can assume that your branding efforts are working.

Social media engagement

Another common goal is to increase engagement on social media. This can be measured by looking at the number of likes, comments and shares on each post. You can also track how many new followers you are gaining and how much overall engagement you are getting on each platform. If you notice an uptick in social media engagement after implementing a new branding strategy, then you know you’re on the right track.

Leads or sales

If your goal is to generate more leads or sales, then you need to look at your conversion rate. This is the percentage of people who take the desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. You can also track the number of leads or sales that come in within a certain time frame (e.g., before and after a marketing campaign). If you see an increase in conversions after launching a new branding effort, then it is likely that your campaign was successful.

Customer satisfaction

It’s important to track customer satisfaction levels in order to gauge how well your brand is performing. This can be done through surveys or customer feedback forms. You can also track metrics like customer retention rate and Net Promoter Score (NPS). If you see an increase in customer satisfaction after launching a new brand campaign, then you know you’re on the right track.

Number of brand mentions

Another metric that can be used to measure branding success is the number of times your brand is mentioned online. This includes mentions on social media, blogs, news articles, etc. You can use a tool like Google Alerts to track all online mentions of your brand name. If you see an increase in online mentions after launching a new branding campaign, then it is likely that your campaign was successful.

Media coverage

If one of your goals is to generate more media coverage for your brand, then you need to track the number of press mentions and placements that you get. You can use a tool like Google Alerts or Mention to track all online mentions of your brand name in the press. If you see an increase in media coverage after launching a new branding campaign, then it is likely that your campaign was successful.

Change in brand perception

It’s also important to track changes in brand perception over time. This can be done through surveys or customer feedback forms. You can ask customers about their overall impressions of your brand before and after launching a new branding campaign. If you see a positive change in brand perception after launching a new branding effort, then it is likely that your campaign was successful.

Conclusion

These are just some of the ways that you can measure the success of your branding efforts. It’s important to choose the metric or metrics that are most relevant to your business goals. And, of course, you need to make sure you are tracking these metrics on a regular basis. By doing so, you will be able to gauge the success of your branding campaigns and make necessary adjustments along the way.

Contact Evolve Media to take your branding efforts to the next level.