Evaluating brand experience relative to brand promise and audience perceptions has an ROI that’s often overlooked by business owners. We’ve seen how this exercise provides valuable insight on a brand’s ability to connect with customers based on their needs and desires vs. a product’s features and benefits. And it can be done efficiently and effectively to mitigate time and cost concerns.
Why is evaluating Brand Experience important?
Attract the Right Audience - By identifying how your customers experience and perceive your brand vs. what you want your brand to represent, you can craft a clear strategy and story to attract the right audience and enhance their engagement.
Amplify What Makes You Unique - A macro view of your brand vs. competitors sheds light on areas of strengths and opportunities to maintain relevance and differentiation.
Gain Organizational Buy-In - Objectively tracking your brand experience enables internal teams and partners to evaluate how well communications reflect the company vision and brand promise while also building their branding skills.
Do you know your ”B Score”?
Per Transmission’s The State of B2B Brand Building 2022 report, “B2B marketers struggle to match their brand experiences to their brand promise. 68% admit that their organisation manages brand experiences just ‘quite well’ or ‘not very well’ at all.”
Throughout our careers we’ve found it valuable to audit communications across platforms to gauge the consistency in messaging and executing against brand strategy. Comparison to competitors’ marketing uncovers where there’s an opportunity to amplify a unique point of difference to drive distinction and advantage as well as uncover the need for rebranding.
So how do you identify where you stand – what your “brand score” is?
Here are three easy steps to benchmark and improve your brand experience:
Gather examples across digital platforms – wherever the brand is promoted (website, social media, promotions, OLV, etc.). | Evaluate both your copy and visuals for clarity and consistency – Are you talking to or at your customer? Is it evident why your customer should care about your offer? Are you emphasizing your point of difference? Do your signature visual and verbal assets consistently build equity? | Benchmark your efforts to competitors’ communications to determine areas for improvement and enhancement.
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The Brand Evaluator B Score Process
Our proprietary Brand Evaluator Assessment evaluates your brand relative to competitors based on 5 key metrics of effective branding. The scorecard helps organizations review their marketing efforts through an objective vs. subjective lens and provides action steps for creating lasting value.
Clients across industries from Non-profits to B2B Service and Manufacturing like Aileron, Kolar Design and Alexander & Associates have found the assessment beneficial as it reveals what they’re doing well along with the gaps in aligning their strategy and experience. Insightful learning and action steps offer guidance on how to consistently share their unique story through customer relevant communications.
What’s the ROI?
Evaluating your brand every year helps you stay current on your competitors’ key messages and branding efforts. It enables you to benchmark your strategy and experience year over year and proactively pivot when necessary to maintain differentiation and relevance while enhancing your organization’s knowledge and ability to bring the brand to life.
An assessment can be right sized to your needs and capacity level – consider doing a deeper dive annually and a quick review in the middle of your fiscal year to guide spend allocation on strategy, creative, sales and media.
Interested In Learning Your B-Score? Connect with Us.
The Brand Evaluator is a joint venture of independent brand builders – Michelle Thompson, BrandSpark Design LLC and Christine Sech, Brave Oak Brand Building LLC. We work with emerging businesses to help them clearly and meaningfully convey their organization’s value through brand building strategy, design and content that drives results.