Your brand is one of the most powerful elements of your business. The quality of the products or services you deliver are important, of course, but ultimately they serve a broader purpose of reflecting your brand. In fact, every aspect of the work you do and the people that represent your company play a role in building your brand. But, ultimately, brand perception is not yours to own. That power is solely within your customers’ hands.

That is why thorough, qualitative and quantitative research is such a fundamental element to understanding and helping shape brand perception. Research shows it takes 5-7 impressions for someone to remember your brand, and the more human you can make it—establishing a community, driving authenticity and transparency, engaging in conversation—the better. Attempting to do that blindly, however, without understanding your audience or confirming that your messaging is resonating, can quickly backfire.

Research can provide novel insights on everything from product performance, to detailed information about your key demographic, to whether your marketing efforts are hitting their goals. The wonderful thing about brand research is that the sky’s the limit—both on the types of data you can collect and the many ways to gather it. Here are some of the most common uses:

 

Brand awareness and perception

For any company, no matter your size or focus, your brand strategy needs to be tied to a strong sense of purpose. Clearly defining your value and mission is what differentiates you in the market. After you’ve identified that value and mission, the next step is to make sure it’s understood by your customer. No matter what you think of your own brand, it’s useless if outside perception doesn’t align. Doing research to find out a) who knows about your brand and b) what they think of it, can offer powerful insights.

For example, a grocery store might run a survey to find out how frequently customers shop, why they choose that store over others, what do customers like about competitor stores, etc. This data can tell how customers feel about the grocery store, what elements of the brand might be stagnating, where customers might be unsatisfied. Analyzing that unstructured data can illuminate all kinds of things about customer perception that sales data cannot.

 

Customer segmentation

You may have a general understanding of who your customers are based on any number of demographic characteristics. Further delving into the research of who your customers are within those demographics can create much more insightful customer personas and help you meet your customers unique needs and preferences through marketing, advertising, product offerings and more.

Consider, for example, the type of customer who might purchase a Jeep. Traditionally, that has been a 20-30 year old male, a college graduate with a disposable income. You’d be wrong to keep your focus that narrow, however. Jeeps are often bought by outdoor enthusiasts and that can mean men or women of a variety of ages. Brand research can help you narrow down your target market by gaining a better understanding of who they are—the behaviors, values, hobbies, interests and various psychographics that make up the individual customer. This knowledge allows for far more advanced customer segmentation.

 

Product concept testing

The product development process is not an easy one. Whether your product is just now market ready or it has been available for some time, using research to support all the work that went into building that product is crucial and so is understanding how best to advertise it. Research can offer insights into everything about a product—not just how it works but also how the customer feels about it—do they like the logo, do the images resonate, would they spend money on it?

A/B testing is a great way to approach product concept research because it helps you to better understand which marketing and/or advertising activities better resonate with your target market. Everything from tone to information to color can be the difference between customer acceptance or rejection, and research can take the guesswork out and leave you confident about your product’s perception.

 

Marketing

For any company, marketing can be the black hole of your budget. You know it is necessary, but it can be extremely challenging to know its value. Research allows you to better understand what marketing efforts are having the greatest impact to your bottom line.

One technique for this is called marketing mix modeling. We can analyze the money you spend on each channel relative to your revenue and identify the impact of those efforts on revenue after a campaign has been launched. With this information, we create an optimized model for moving forward that tells you how much money you should be putting into each channel. Having that information at your fingertips can help justify costs and allow you to funnel your marketing dollars to where they are most impactful.

 

Are you ready for research?

The good news about brand research is that it can be customized to exactly what you need it to be. Budgets vary wildly, depending on the types of insights you need to glean, but you don’t need to be a global corporation to invest in brand research. SMBs can benefit from all kinds of data insights at a budget they can afford.

Investment aside, there are other factors that must be in place for brand research to be effective. First, you need to ensure that all stakeholders at your organization are supportive of the research findings. Too often the research is conducted and the data is delivered but the executive team disagrees on next steps and nothing is done. It’s important that your team is aligned to create actionable insights from any data collected.

Next, carefully consider your brand research partner and ensure you are getting a qualified team. Research done well is incredibly insightful, but unlike a graphic design or a product iteration, it can be hard to know when research is done poorly. Research done well should yield data that directly impacts your bottom line. Look for a reputable partner with the right credentials. At Reed Hill, our team has deep experience in research design and econometrics. Understanding how best to model the research is an essential part of getting the right kinds of results that move the needle for your business.

Finally, think strategically. You don’t necessarily need every type of research available to get to the crux of improving your brand. You want the right tool for the right problem. This is where choosing an experienced team will come into play, as they can help guide your efforts.

Creating a successful brand is mission critical for your business and understanding that brand can only be done through effective research. Far from a one-and-done activity, brand research needs to be an intrinsic part of your business goals, something that is conducted on an ongoing basis to help you manage shifting market perceptions and dynamic customer preferences.

No matter the size of your organization, brand research should be one of the tools in your arsenal. Contact us today and let us help you design a brand research strategy that delivers tangible improvements to your bottom line.