Measuring Brand Awareness

Posted September 1, 2009 at 9:48 am
In category: authors | blog | entrepreneurs | organizations   tags: Brand Awareness | Brand Marketing | linkedin   0 Comments

In talking to authors and business professionals, one of the most frequent concerns I hear about conducting marketing activities is “I just don’t have time” followed almost immediately by “I have no idea what to do.”

These are valid issues. If you’re an author already on deadline, time is of the essence. Even unpublished writers seeking to break into the business generally have very little time to devote to marketing activities, whether those activities are “soft” (networking in person or online, buzz-building for your work) or “hard” (offering a contest giveaway, conducting a booksigning, or running an ad to drive traffic to your website). Business professionals and entrepreneurs have many of the same time constraints.

In addition, the “what to do” concern is often both a function of time and money. Certain marketing activities are very time intensive—but may not cost a lot in actual dollars spent. Most online ventures fall into this category, such as blogging or conducting an interactive contest. Book-signings can also serve as a low-cost venture (unless you feel compelled to bring bookmarks or giveaways!), but can take your entire day if you’re not careful. On the other hand, purchasing expensive giveaways to give out to all comers or buying ad space in trade publications or local media outlets can all be accomplished fairly quickly, but can become prohibitively expensive – and it’s difficult to track the long-term impact of those activities. What’s a time- and resource-starved marketer to do?One thing is certain, if you are serious about building name recognition, you can’t just sit back and expect it to “happen” on its own. Particularly in today’s interactive market, where buzz building can become its own online phenomenon, it can help your career tremendously if you are able to build awareness for your work and your Brand. However, in order to make sure that your time in conducting these initiatives is well spent, it pays to know how to measure your Brand Awareness effectively.

Brand Metrics… A moving target

Brand Metrics are simply the measuring stick you apply to your Brand Awareness increase (or decrease) over time. How can Brand Metrics help you? Here’s just one example: By being able to point to tangible growth in Brand Metrics such as site traffic, newsletter subscriptions and positive anecdotal feedback, all of which are discussed briefly below, you can clearly demonstrate your strengthening position in the market. If you’re trying to convince your agent or editor to expand your distribution or exposure, or to buy more books in a new series, this kind of data could help you seal the deal. Alternatively, if you’re trying to convince your CFO to spend more on image marketing, this kind of information is critical to making a credible argument.

So measuring Brand Awareness is important – but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Unlike purchase activity for a specific product, it’s difficult to track how much *better* your audience knows you now than they did a year ago, unless you can point to breakout sales numbers. In corporate marketing, most Brand Awareness Benchmarks are set through time intensive measurements—such as phone or man-on-the-street interviews to check name recognition. As writers or new business owners, however, most do not have the patience or technology to conduct formal Brand Awareness Benchmarking. So below are four quick ways for you to “take your Brand’s temperature”. Conducted on a regular basis (say, once a quarter or ideally once a month), they can help you see when your Brand is heating up – or cooling off.

1. Site stats

If you have books or new products coming out regularly, you’ll see a natural jump in your site hits during those time periods – but what about your off months? Establish a base number of hits that represents typical site activity, and see how sales or promotional events impact that number. Give yourself bonus points for regular, steady growth, for your site moving up in Google rankings on keyword searches that are meaningful for your genre, and for a spike of hits from referring sites (such as reviewer sites).

2. Blog/Message board hits

Whether guest blogging or on days that you post to your own blog, track the ebb and flow of hits to your blog page or the number of blog posts you get. In addition to determining raw counts, pay particular attention to new posters or posters who come because they’ve linked over from other sites. Then track how many folks transfer from the blog page to your website, and how long they stay. Free services like sitemeter.com can provide much of this data, quickly and easily. Extra points for blog fans who become newsletter subscribers or follow you via other social media sites!

**Quick Tip: Whenever appropriate, embed links within your Blog posts to other sites on the web. By linking out, you help introduce your readers to new resources, and you may find that other sites will return the favor, if they note that you are linking to them. Again, the key word here is “appropriate”—don’t make your Blog a link farm!**

3. Long term lift in newsletter subscribers

Generally, contests will net you a spike of activity, but if you find that your overall newsletter list continues to swell even outside of contest activity, that’s an indication of greater Brand awareness. You’re providing something to your readership base that’s of value, and they want to learn more! To help spur newsletter growth, consider adding “exclusive” information for your readers not available elsewhere.

4. Anecdotal feedback

This is the spongiest metric, and it’s one that you’ll need to track qualitatively (with words) more so than quantitatively (with numbers). Here are some questions to get you started: How many people in the industry or among readers know your name? How are you received in public – blankly, with a glimmer of recognition (like “hmm… I know that name”), or with the bowled-over enthusiasm of rabid fans? By starting this tracking process when you’re relatively unknown, you’ll see a gratifying lift to your name recognition over time. However, even if you’re already known, you can chart your Brand awareness in new markets and compare it against your more mainstream audiences’ name recognition.  And never underestimate the value of user reviews. The September, 2009 issue of TrendWatching features an outstanding article on this.

Getting Started

Tracking Brand Awareness does take time, but is very manageable if you make it a regular part of your marketing activities. To get started, simply create a quick chart for each of your brand awareness initiatives – your site, your blog site, newsletter and general “name recognition”. Jot down current results for the past month, and set your calendar to remind you every month to do a five- to ten-minute update to these numbers. Once you get into the habit, you’ll find it will become a great way to track the impact your Brand is making!