How to Conduct a Brand Awareness Survey
Brand awareness is more than just a measure of how often consumers see your ads or mention your name. This complex indicatorwhich influences on customer loyalty, the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and, ultimately, on your profit.
But how to accurately measure this indicator? How do you know that people actually remember your brand and didn’t just stumble upon it on the Internet? One of the most effective methods is surveys specifically designed to measure brand awareness.
In this article, we’ll dive into the nuances of creating and conducting surveys that will help you get a detailed analysis of your brand awareness. We’ll look at the types of questions that can be used, best practices for asking questions, and share examples, case studies, and tips on how to avoid common pitfalls when conducting brand awareness surveys.
Why surveys are important for measuring brand awareness
Problems of traditional measurement methods
Traditional methods of measuring brand awareness, such as analyzing media mentions, tracking social networks or studying sales, can only provide indirect results. They may not be able to answer questions about how consumers perceive your brand on an emotional level, or what associations they have when they mention your brand.
Limited information: Such methods often provide a narrow range of information that is more quantitatively focused than qualitative.
High price: Traditional methods, especially high-quality ones, are usually expensive and time-consuming.
Ambiguous results: Due to the many factors that can affect these figures (e.g. seasonal variations, changes in competitor advertising campaigns), results may be inconsistent or even skewed.
Benefits of Surveys
Surveys offer a number of significant advantages over the above methods for measuring brand awareness:
Deep understanding of the consumer: Surveys allow you to not only measure, but also understand exactly how consumers perceive your brand, what is important to them, and what associations they have.
Flexibility and scalability: Surveys can be easily tailored to different audiences and markets by changing the questions or structure of the survey itself.
Cost efficiency: Conducting surveys, especially using automated tools, is significantly cheaper than most other research methods.
Speed and accuracy: Modern survey tools allow you to quickly collect and analyze data, delivering reliable results in the shortest possible time.
With all of these benefits in mind, it becomes clear why surveys are one of the most effective tools for measuring brand awareness. They allow companies not only to “take the temperature” of consumer attitudes towards a brand, but also to gain a deeper understanding of the motives and preferences that underlie this attitude.
Basic Types of Questions in a Brand Awareness Survey
Understanding what questions to include in your survey is key to successfully measuring brand awareness. Different types of questions can provide different types of information, and each type has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Open and closed questions
Open questions: These questions provide respondents with an opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings without any restrictions. They can be useful for obtaining qualitative data and in-depth understanding of your brand perception.
Closed questions: These questions provide predefined answers from which to choose. This type of question is useful for quick analysis and ideal for quantitative research.
Likert scale questions
These questions use a scale (usually 1 to 5 or 1 to 7) to measure the respondent’s degree of agreement or disagreement with a particular statement. This is a great way to measure sentiment towards your brand and its attributes.
Multiple Choice Questions
These questions ask respondents to select one or more answer options from a given list. They are useful for obtaining quantitative data and can be easily analyzed.
Example: “Through what channels did you learn about our brand?” (Social networks, Television, Recommendations from friends, etc.)
There are other, more complex question types, such as ranking questions or using a semantic differential, but the above question types are the most commonly used and will be a great place to start for most surveys. Online survey creation platforms provide a wide range of tools that make the process much easier.
How to create a survey: Steps and recommendations
Conducting a brand awareness survey is not something that can be done on the fly. Such a survey requires a well-thought-out plan and strategy. In this section, we’ll look at how to formulate survey goals and objectives and select the appropriate audience.
Defining goals and objectives
The first and perhaps most important step is to determine what exactly you want to learn from the survey. The goal must be specific, measurable and achievable.
Audience selection
To obtain the most accurate data, choose a target audience that best reflects the needs of the study.
Audience selection example: If your goal is to study brand awareness among youth, you should target social networks, forums, or places where this demographic is active.
Writing questions
We’ve already discussed the different types of questions you can use in a survey. Depending on your goal, you can combine open and closed questions, Likert scale questions, and multiple choice questions.
Examples and cases
Let’s look at two cases to see how surveys help in studying brand awareness and what results they can bring.
Case 1: New Product Awareness Survey
Task: A company is launching a new product on the market and wants to understand how recognizable it is among potential consumers.
Solution:
Defining goals and objectives: Assess the awareness of a new product among the target audience during the first three months after launch.
Audience selection: The survey is aimed at potential consumers aged 25-40 years.
Writing questions: Using Likert scale questions to assess familiarity and open-ended questions to gather additional information.
Results and conclusions:
The survey showed that only 35% of respondents know about the new product.
Additional open-ended questions revealed that most people would like to see a more active advertising campaign.
This case illustrates how important it is to regularly conduct surveys when launching new products in order to adequately respond to market dynamics.
Case 2: Research on brand awareness in different markets
Task: An international company wants to evaluate its brand awareness in different countries.
Solution:
Defining goals and objectives: Compare brand awareness in the US, Europe and Asia.
Audience selection: The survey is conducted among individuals involved in procurement in the corporate sector.
Writing questions: Using multiple choice questions to measure awareness and Likert scale questions to measure brand attitude.
Results and conclusions:
The survey found that the brand is most recognized in the US (over 70%), less recognized in Europe (almost 50%) and least recognized in Asia (less than 30%).
The majority of respondents in Europe and Asia noted that they would like to see the brand more often in local advertising campaigns.
This case study shows how surveys can help inform a global marketing strategy and tailor a brand to different markets.
Common mistakes when creating surveys and how to avoid them
In the world of brand awareness research, surveys occupy one of the leading places, but their effectiveness largely depends on how well they are designed. Let’s look at common mistakes that companies make when creating surveys and suggest ways to solve them.
1. Fuzzy goals and objectives
Problem: Companies often start working on a survey without clearly defined goals and objectives.
Solution: Before you start working on your survey, define its goals and objectives. This will help in formulating questions and analyzing the data obtained.
2. Wrong choice of audience
Problem: The target audience of the survey was chosen incorrectly, which leads to distortion of the results.
Solution: It is very important to initially correctly identify the target audience.
3. Complex and ambiguous questions
Problem: The use of complex language and ambiguous wording may lead to respondents misunderstanding the questions.
Solution: Avoid complex and ambiguous language. Pretest the survey with a small group.
4. Too many questions
Problem: Too many questions may bore respondents, reducing the quality of responses.
Solution: Limit yourself to the optimal number of questions needed to achieve your research objectives. Find a balance between quantity and quality of questions.
5. Lack of testing
Problem: The survey was launched without preliminary testing, which may lead to technical failures or incorrect interpretation of data.
Solution: Always pre-test your survey. This will allow you to identify possible problems and eliminate them in a timely manner.
A well-created survey is half the battle in studying your brand awareness. Thanks to online survey creation platforms, this process can be made much easier and more accurate.
Changes in brand awareness depending on research methods
There is a big difference in the effectiveness of brand awareness research methods, and this is supported by scientific research and statistics. For example, a study published in the Journal of Brand Management found that online surveys can be more accurate than focus groups or social media observations.
Key findings:
Online surveys: Showed a high degree of accuracy in determining brand awareness. They are especially effective when it comes to large-scale studies with a large number of respondents.
Focus groups: Although they are useful for obtaining qualitative data, focus groups can be biased and reach a smaller audience.
Social media: Social media mention analysis is useful, but can be biased by limited context and the subjectivity of internet users.
Of course, each method has its advantages and disadvantages, and often the most effective approach is a combined one. But if you’re looking for a method that’s both effective, cost-effective, and scalable, online surveys are the way to go.
In addition, modern survey creation platforms such as SurveyMonkey or Testografprovide tools for deep data analysis, enabling you to make informed decisions and improve branding strategies based on specific, verified data.
Thus, knowing about the existence of different methods and their effectiveness, companies can make a more informed choice in favor of one or another brand awareness research method.
Completion
Measuring brand awareness is not just a quantitative indicator that can be easily obtained and assessed. This is a complex process that requires a deep understanding of your target audience, market, and research tools. Surveys are one of the most effective methods in this regard, especially when they are well planned and implemented using the right tools.
By following our recommendations, you can avoid common mistakes and conduct research that will not only give you numerical data, but also qualitative insight into how your brand is perceived in the market.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that brand awareness is not a static indicator. This is a dynamic indicator that requires constant monitoring. In this context, surveys become not just a tool for “measuring” but also a tool for “managing” your brand.
