by Jack Anzarouth, president of Digital Ink Marketing
You spend a lot of time and money getting people to talk about your brand, so it just makes sense that you would have a way to measure just how successful your brand awareness campaigns are.
Knowing what metrics to measure and how to perform those measurements is key to monitoring how much attention your brand has captured.
These five elements will give you an idea of how far reaching your brand is:
1. Brand Searches.
Searches for your specific brand name or elements of your brand like a mascot or spokesperson are a good indication that people have heard of your brand and want to find out more information about it.
Use Google Trends or a similar tool to see how many people are searching for your brand’s name or things related to your brand for a specified time period. You can compare two different time periods to see how much interest has gone up or down and see search history by regions so you know where your brand awareness is strong. You can also check the related searches and queries so you know exactly what people are searching for in relation to your brand name.
2. Direct Website Visits.
An important indicator of strong brand awareness that a tool like Google Analytics can show you is your direct traffic. This is a measurement of people who have gone directly to your website by typing your URL into the address bar rather than by clicking a link.
If people are going directly to your site, they are obviously aware of your brand. A spike in direct traffic is a good indicator that you’re reaching people and they are taking action.
3. Brand Mentions.
Set up a Google Alert for your brand and watch for people talking about your brand on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. These conversations between people are a good indicator of how many people are talking about your brand and if those conversations are positive or negative.
You can use a tool such as Mention to help you monitor how many times your brand is referenced and also whether you should be addressing those references. If you find people with large followings who are particularly enamoured with your brand, you can approach them about being brand ambassadors and if you find people who have less than kind things to say about your brand, you can try to reverse that situation.
4. Backlinks.
How many other websites you have linking to your site is another good measurement of how well known your brand is. Backlinks from reputable sites are akin to an endorsement of your brand. You can use Google Search Console, which is free, or a paid tool if you prefer to see the number of sites that are backlinking to your site.
But, the caveat here is that a high number isn’t necessarily good. A high number is only good if those links are coming from sites of high quality. If the links are coming from low quality sites, they are doing your site more harm than good. In that case, you should take steps to have the low-quality backlinks removed or disavow them, which is essentially getting Google to ignore them when assessing your site.
Providing those backlinks are good quality, though, it’s another good way to gauge brand awareness.
5. Social Engagement.
While it’s impossible to measure word-of-mouth advertising, measuring social media engagement is the next best thing. A tool such as Hootsuite will give you useful analytics about your brand’s social media engagement like how many people are interacting with your brand on various social networks. Each social network will have its own analytical tools you can use to monitor engagement.
Monitoring your brand’s awareness will allow you to allocate resources better. Develop a system for monitoring brand awareness and do it regularly, especially after marketing campaigns, so you’ll know what is working and what isn’t.
Jack Anzarouth has been marketing director for a variety of different brands. In September of 2016, he decided to open Digital Ink Marketing, a full-service boutique digital marketing agency that serves businesses in the New York area and beyond.
