One of our favorite questions to ask any new or potential client is, “Do you know if your current branding is working effectively?” We are often shocked at the varying responses we get here!
Sometimes we hear, “Oh, sure it’s working, I just am not seeing the conversion I’d like to see.” Or, “My branding is fine, it’s my products that need work.”
Well, interestingly enough, conversions and sales have so much to do with branding. We work with these clients to educate them on just how influential branding is to get those conversions they are looking for or to see the increase in product sales.
Your branding is the cornerstone to your business. Because of this, when you’re looking to measure if it’s working effectively, there are numerous ways to do to really get a good idea on how effective your branding is.
We could discuss at length the many ways, but today we will focus on 3 simple ways to measure the effectiveness of your branding.
3 Ways to Know If Your Branding is Effective
1. Ask Your Audience
We LOVE asking our audience for feedback and getting their take on a new branding element, a new idea, a new product or service, or even a new website change. Their feedback tells us so much!
When asking your audience a question related to your brand, you are looking for 2 things:
The first is their genuine feeling (do they like it, do they love it, do they think it’s boring, etc.).
And the second is whether or not they don’t want to answer because they don’t care OR don’t feel like they can be honest! In fact, a lack of response is a response too!
Our rule of thumb for asking our audience for feedback is to always provide multiple options for them to select. Then, if none of those options fit their position OR they have more to say, we always provide a platform for them to share more thoughts. We highly recommend asking your audience a branding question and giving them 4 solid options to choose from on a spectrum (ranging from “obsessed” or “worst idea ever” in your own branding language).
You can ask your audience for feedback in a myriad of ways, but our favorite way is to use social media polls. This gives us a quick response and engagement at the same time!
2. Analyze Your Direct Traffic
We are getting a bit technical here because this statistic is so powerful. Have you ever looked at your Direct traffic from Google Analytics? This is what tells you who is typing in your brand directly to reach your website. (Other types of traffic include referral, social, and organic.)
Direct traffic plays a large factor in determining your brand awareness because this indicates that people remember your brand well enough to type it in directly. This is a helpful tool to access so that you can determine if your branding is sticking in people’s minds and providing a clear, consistent message. A sign of ineffective branding would be if they have to pause and think, “What was that company that sells that thing again?”
In your Google Analytics profile, navigate to the Acquisition section. From there, click “Add Segment” and select “Direct Traffic” to pull up the Direct traffic stats. Adjust your time period based on the length of time you’re looking to measure. (We typically look back at least 3 months.) Consistently analyze this number to watch for growth patterns. The more effective your branding, the higher your direct traffic percentage should be.
3. Study Your Brand Search Volume
Search volume is the amount of times per month, on average, a keyword is searched on Google. This amount can grow and shrink depending on your brand effectiveness, so you should absolutely pay attention to it!
While various keywords can be measured related to your brand, pay close attention to your actual brand name. This is what is promoted throughout all of your branding the very most and therefore should be the most analyzed.
Wondering how to determine search volume? Use a helpful keyword tool! We love using Ahrefs, but have had great success with Ubersuggest, Semrush, and Google Keyword Planner.
We recommend monitoring the search volume of your brand name (along with other brand terms and your products and services) monthly. Using the tools above, you can pull reports that share data related to your search volume amount and whether or not it is increasing or decreasing. You can also see if your rank for these terms is going up or down, another powerful metric to watch related to your brand effectiveness and overall SEO.
How to know if your branding is effective is not an easy thing to do, but it can be measured routinely and provide you answers to many questions you might have. If any of the above suggestions provide results that go against what you were trying to do with your branding, consider switching things up to get the results you are looking for.
The beauty of branding is that you have full control to adjust it when you see the need. Trust your gut and go for it!
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