Improving Brand Perception & Loyalty

How do people feel about your brand? And more importantly, how do you change how people feel for the better? Talking about brand perception always reminds me of that scene from 'The Wolf of Wall Street' between Matthew McConaughey and Leonardo DiCaprio. What I mean to say is, that it's almost completely intangible and near impossible to measure in any meaningful way. Which a lot of brands and marketers seem to get hung up on in our data-crazy status quo.

Measuring Brand Perception

Changes in the perception and growth of a brand are nearly impossible to measure with any semblance of concrete data. In my opinion, it does not need to be measured. In the same way that you can't measure if someone is a good person or not, you just get a bit of a feeling through anecdotal experiences - the same is true of brands. However, if you absolutely must have some data on brand perception, here's how I would do it.

Surveys & Questionnaires

Very direct and for lack of a better word, a bit "cringe". It also tends to be unreliable, as people are incredibly unlikely to answer unless they have some very strong opinions. Most of the time, any strong opinions felt about brands are negative. Someone will rarely be positively passionate about any brand. However, customer satisfaction surveys, brand awareness surveys, and brand attribute research can provide some useless insights into the sentiments consumers have regarding your brand.

Social Media Listening

Probably the most natural and organic way to assess brand perception. However, it only really works if you're a large, well-established brand, with some level of an engaged audience. It also doesn't provide any data as such, unless you run a 'Sentiment Analysis' with tools like Brand24, or Mention.

Online Reviews & Ratings

You're likely already monitoring these. Reviews do provide some good insight; however, they do fall into a similar trap as surveys. In that, people tend to only leave a review if they have a strong opinion - which leaves a lot of reasonably positive sentiments missing from the records. It is also worth noting that review data can often be muddied with product or fulfilment frustrations, which is not directly related to your brand perception.

The Problem With Measuring Brand Perception

Getting into measuring concepts like brand perception is a dangerous path to walk, often leading to an over-reliance on data. Despite what you might think and hear about marketing in the modern era, data is not the be-all-and-end-all, and some things just don't need to be measured. Just because you can't measure something, doesn't mean you can't work to improve it.

I can almost guarantee that you have a few brands you idolise and look to for inspiration for branding. Now I'm not a mind reader, so I don't know who's on your mood board of brands, but one's that come up a lot are Apple, Disney, Coca-Cola, Nike, McDonald's, or Starbucks. When these brands were becoming big and growing into the brand giants they are today, they didn't have any data to analyse, no spreadsheets to obsess over. They followed best practices and were/are industry leaders in brand marketing campaigns.

How to Improve Brand Perception & Loyalty

There are countless ways to go about improving your brand's perception, and most of them are common sense. However, I will highlight a few of my favourite ways to achieve this.

Have a Good Brand Story

Building trust and loyalty in a brand is much the same as building it in personal relationships, it requires a connection. A brand that resonates with your audience emotionally is a fantastic way to foster that connection.

Your brand's story should capture its origin and why it exists. It should explain the motivation behind products and offerings, the gaps in the market they fill, and the vision that led to the brand's launch.

Offer Consistent Products & Services

This concept can be best summed up by looking at brands like McDonald's or Starbucks. People don't choose to purchase from these brands because it's the absolute best version of the product that exists on the market, but no matter where you are (even in a different country), you know roughly what to expect from them. It's a familiar consistency maintained across different locations and at different times that keeps bringing many loyal customers back.

It should be noted that at no point should consistency come at the expense of quality. After all, something that's consistently bad is hardly desirable.

Prioritise Experience Over Transaction

Customer service plays an enormous role in building and maintaining brand loyalty. Ideally, you want your customers to be dependable repeat buyers, 5-star reviewers, and even evangelisers of your brand on social media, especially forum-based platforms like Reddit.

The way to achieve this is to prioritise creating a relationship with exceptional customer experiences, rather than simply facilitating a transaction.