What is Brand Perception?

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What is Brand Perception?

A brands perception is referred to what a consumer thinks, feels and says about your brand. It is how they perceive your brand and this is often derived from their experience with your product or service offering. Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that a good quality product will be enough to conquer a specific market and automatically leading to sales. But even the best products or services can fall prey to negative publicity due to a bad experience from customers, in turn resulting in a negative perception of the brand.

Interactions with your brand

A brands perception is not only created or affected by the experience from the consumer with your product or service but can take on quite a few interactions. As an example, the interaction with your brand can include anything from a conversation, a response to a message, emails or online reviews. These interactions are often overlooked and can be the difference between a positive or negative brand perception for your business.

Besides the interactions the design of campaigns, stories and use of images or individuals could also affect the perception of your brand. Pepsi’s choice of celebrity testimonial and commercial with Kendall Jenner in 2017 was deemed more detrimental than it potentially would have been due to social media. Pepsi created the ad with the intention to portray peace, unity and understanding. However, it back-fired and the ad was pulled as it appeared to trivialize demonstrations aimed at tackling social justice causes, suggesting that protestors and police would get along better if the former were kinder and being insensitive in regard to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Before designing and implementing campaigns make sure you conduct enough research and understand the consequences and how your brand will be perceived by your audience especially if you will be running a campaign based on a recent issue/challenge within society.

Measuring brand perception

So how would you know if your business has a positive brand perception besides speaking to your clients? The best way to know is to use measurement tools that allows you to track the brands perception of what clients think. Check out the following measurement tools that can assist you in tracking your brands perception.

  1. Sign up for Google Alerts

No one has time to monitor the web for mentions. Google Alerts does the searching for you. If you’re not using it already then you should start.

  1. Read online reviews

According to Nielsen over 84% of consumers say that they somewhat or completely trust peer recommendations, according to Nielsen. Google Alerts should notify you of these reviews and mentions, but it’s good to track reviews diligently and encourage happy customers to share their opinions publicly.

  1. Respond to social media posts

33% of consumers prefer to reach out to a business via social media, and it’s common for current and prospective customers to scan social media interactions to get a sense for the brand’s customer care standards.

  1. Survey customers

Customer surveys are one of the best tools you can use to measure brand perception. There are a variety of platforms you can use when conducting your research. One we are very fond of is Survey Monkey https://www.surveymonkey.com/ . It’s pretty simple and there’s a free option plan to choose from as well.

It is important to be aware that a brand perception can have long term effects on your business and this can either be a negative or positive.  As small businesses your focus should always be on the process consumers will take when wanting to purchase or experience your product. From the time they visit your website, make an inquiry, complete an order to the use of your product or service. Monitoring these processes will allow you to make sure consumers have a positive experience resulting in a positive brand perception, turning them into long term loyal customers.

 

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