Brand perception surrounds people constantly. The logo on a bedroom television can be as effective as an advertisement at creating awareness and expressing a specific aesthetic. Brand perception affects customer views on the look, feel, and interaction with the business, even if they did not know that they perceived it. Since branding affects so many aspects of business success, you should understand how it works and how you can assess it. By incorporating this knowledge into your business, you can devise marketing practices that reinforce your brand’s ideal messaging.
What Is Brand Perception?
Brand perception involves the things that customers think of when they see or hear a mention of your business. This perception is all-encompassing, meaning that it involves everything that comes to a customer’s mind when thinking about your company. As such, customers may hold up every aspect of your business for possible scrutiny, from the font face on your logo to the customer experience you provide online and in stores. Although customers may develop an in-depth perception based on their favorite brands, they also have opinions about companies with which they have never done business.
Why Does Brand Perception Matter for Businesses?
Brand perception affects all stages of the decision-making process for consumers. People who are at the top of the sales funnel might rely on recommendations from family and friends or perform casual online searches for options. As they progress through their choices, they may consider the look and feel of the company’s branding to determine if they trust the business to meet their needs. Once the sale is complete, customers incorporate their experiences into their initial evaluation of the brand, updating it as needed. At any point in this process, bad or inconsistent branding can divert customers to competitors with better brand perception.
How Do Customers Develop an Opinion of Your Brand?
Most consumers develop opinions of brands without even realizing it. A slick awareness campaign can do wonders for improving your reach, while a badly timed ad campaign can ruin the way that people see your business. Customers rely on these methods to formulate brand perception, so you should pay attention to the consistency and efficacy of each.
Brand messaging
Although the actual messaging you publish on behalf of your brand is only one component of brand perception, it is the most important. Consumers do not always believe what you say about yourself, but they take your messaging into consideration. Brand messaging should aim to convey the value that your business provides to customers. Problematic or inconsistent messaging makes it harder for customers to build an opinion that reflects what you want them to think or feel.
Online presence
Your business’s online presence gives a lot of information to customers, in its existence or absence. Consumers use online searches and social media to get a sense for the business’s operations, including open hours, reviews, available content, and response to queries. A business with very little online presence may seem flaky or untrustworthy. Although a greater online presence can give customers more to work with when developing brand perception, you should confirm that your design, content, and messaging is consistent with your brand goals.
Customer experience
Once customers arrive at your business to buy a product or service, you are in the position of forming the strongest possible brand perception. Customer experience can reinforce or negate every other aspect of your branding. Ideally, you set up a customer experience to be seamless and easy to navigate, from the initial entry to the completion of the transaction. Customer experience services, such as professional contact centers, can help you establish your brand as one that takes customer concerns seriously.
Reviews and ratings
As much as businesses would like to have their branding entirely under their control, aspects such as ratings and reviews can take some influence away from the company. Customers rely on ratings and reviews to assess a business’s honesty and value proposition. If you say that you provide a great value and service to customers, but the online reviews say otherwise, your customers may develop an inconsistent view of your brand. Accepting honest reviews and changing problematic aspects of the customer experience make it easier to create consistent branding that can withstand a few low ratings.
Market trends
Market trends can completely change the way that consumers view your business. Statista notes that Zoom’s stock price rose nearly 500 percent in 2020 when the video communications app suddenly became a vital service for work and personal connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although you may not always be able to anticipate these changes, you can ride out the peaks and valleys by adapting your messaging to reflect customers’ realities.
How Can You Assess Your Brand Perception?
Because customers continually develop and refine perceptions of your brand, you should evaluate it often. These tools can help you get a sense for the way that customers view your brand, so that you can augment your messaging or other branding to improve it.
Surveys
Surveys can be one of the best ways to evaluate your brand perception, especially when they come from your existing customer base. Surveys provide an opportunity for customers to provide feedback. If you want accurate feedback that tells you how customers view your brand, you should keep the survey short and focus on the aspects you want to test. A detailed survey about customer experience or social media engagement may be more effective than general questions about brand association.
Focus groups
For businesses that are determining how to present the brand, focus groups can provide concentrated feedback in a short period of time. Focus groups involve bringing together a group of potential customers and asking them their perceptions about certain aspects of the business. These groups usually offer a better result when all target demographics are represented and the questions are specific.
Data analytics
Data analytics can give you a detailed sense of the way that people engage with your brand even if they do not speak directly with you. You can set up tools such as Google Analytics or various social media monitoring options to track mentions of your company. Many tools rely on AI to quickly aggregate data and present it in a way that helps you see what most people are saying about your business.
Developing brand perception is something that businesses will need to do regularly. Viewpoints change depending on customer experiences, market trends, and other factors. Businesses with consistent branding can help customers to develop an accurate perception of their value. By using these tools to shape brand perception, companies can keep a pulse on their branding and update it to reflect the needs of the modern consumer.
⸻ Author Bio ⸻
Gina Robertson is Vice President of Client Services at Ansafone Contact Centers. She leads a national team of experienced account executives who strive to consistently exceed client expectations by delivering outstanding customer service. She has more than 30 years of call center experience and has played leadership roles in various areas including operation management, project management and client services.
