Brand image measurement: recognizing the effects of your efforts

Small business branding is a well known means of attracting and retaining customers through familiarity and resonance in an industry. Unlike other facets of marketing, unfortunately, the results can be difficult to measure, and trying to understand the financial benefits of each branding effort you make can be frustrating.

Making an effort to understand the effects of your brand image and the strides you've made in increasing your business' positive image is still an important marketing move, despite the sometimes intangible and subjective nature of the results. As a business owner or manager, at the very least, measuring your brand's effects will give you a feel for what's working and what should be changed.

How is your brand viewed?

Your initial measurement efforts will be on perception. Through surveys, focus groups and conversations with customers, employees and peers, you can gauge how your brand is viewed.

Recognition is one of the top goals of branding for a small business – especially a startup – and is an easy inquiry through a number of channels. Using a social media survey or a question box on your website, ask your page visitors how they came to know you: a search engine, direct marketing materials, through a friend or from past experience. This will give you a general idea of where business is coming from, and if most is by research or SEO (such as those led to your company through a search engine), your brand may be underperforming.

A more complete means of measuring your brand's success is a focus group or detailed survey. With the chance to ask multiple questions and receive detailed feedback, you can judge how well each facet of your branding is performing.

Although it can lead to subjective answers and few hard facts, try to determine how consumers feel about your image. Questions on salience and recognition such as, "does our logo stand out in the industry?" may be exactly what you want to know, but you'll need to rely on the assumption that customers are familiar with many of your competitors or have to include a much larger number of inquiries into the participant's knowledge and spending habits – which makes the process more time consuming and could result in far fewer respondents.

With a simple subject such as your logo, try instead to gauge initial feelings, similar to a Rorschach test. Ask your participants what they first noticed about the image, and what kind of product or service it brought to mind. More abstract subjects like your business' general presence can be measured in the same manner – ask pointed questions of those familiar with your business, even if the answer may be painful. If a former customer thinks your company's credibility is low, you should know so you can examine the reasons.

How is your brand performing?

The performance of your brand is harder to gauge than its recognition, but more important when deciding how much to spend on marketing campaigns. At the top of a business owner's mind is how well marketing efforts lead to sales, as any branding that won't lead to an eventual return on the investment is a waste of time and money, regardless of how professional, approachable or successful it makes the company appear.

The website questionnaire, in addition to quick phone, email and in-person inquiries are good measurements of return business. The simple question "how did you find us?" is an old but useful tool, and if the answer is related to your visual image or a referral, you can assume the business is at least partly thanks to your branding efforts.

Develop a number of brand awareness and impression questions for your website, customer service and correspondence to measure the effects of your brand image, and sum your totals to compare and judge effectiveness. While you may not see concrete numbers as you would with paid marketing metrics, you'll get a grasp on how your company is viewed and the likelihood of return business.

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