Brand research is the process of gathering and analyzing data to gain insights into various aspects of a brand. It studies how a brand is perceived by its target audience while understanding its positioning in the market and evaluating its overall performance.
In this article, we’ll discuss what brand research is, how to conduct it effectively, and why it’s crucial for the success of your business.
Table of Contents
What Is Brand Research?
Brand research is the critical process of collecting data to understand how a brand is perceived by its target audience and the public. The goal of an in-depth brand study is to obtain valuable information that can guide brand strategy, messaging, decision-making, and marketing efforts. Whether you’re establishing your brand from scratch or refreshing an existing branding strategy, brand research is the first step to making it happen.
What Does Brand Research Involve?
Brand research typically involves qualitative and quantitative research methods to help organizations understand consumer attitudes, perceptions, behaviors, and preferences related to their brand.
Key components of brand research include:
- Brand awareness analysis: This assesses how easily a brand can be recognized in the marketplace and how well-known it is among its target audience.
- Customer perception studies: These provide insights into customers’ opinions and attitudes toward the brand.
- Competitor analysis: This evaluates the brand’s position relative to its competitors in terms of strengths, weaknesses, and market share.
- Brand equity measurement: This measures brand value in terms of brand recognition, customer loyalty, and financial performance.
- Product evaluation: This is a thorough analysis of how the brand’s offerings are perceived and compared against competitors in terms of quality, value, unique selling proposition, and customer satisfaction.
The Importance of Brand Research
Brand research is important to your business because it provides a holistic view of the brand’s current state and helps with the following:
- Measuring your brand’s impact and progress
- Tracking the impressions you’re making
- Determining if you’re on the right path to achieving long-term goals
- Keeping up with industry trends
- Staying relevant to current events
- Performing competitor analysis
Branding research equips you with the relevant data to build a strong brand guided by your vision and current audience perception. As these aspects change and evolve, conducting continuous research activities keeps your brand in check and ensures you’re on track to achieve your business objectives.
Research on branding allows you to quantify your progress and make data-driven and informed choices on your strategy. A consistent branding presentation through all your channels and platforms can drive revenue up to 23%.
6 Common Types of Brand Research
Common areas explored in brand research help businesses gain insights into different aspects of their brand:
- Brand awareness research
- Brand perception research
- Brand equity research
- Brand positioning research
- Brand tracking
- Brand loyalty research
Brand Awareness Research
This type of research assesses the level of brand recognition and familiarity among target audiences. It measures the extent to which consumers know of a brand's existence and its key attributes. Based on these findings, businesses can easily adjust their brand awareness strategies.
Brand Perception Research
Brand perception research focuses on understanding how consumers perceive a brand in terms of its image, reputation, values, and positioning. It involves gathering open customer feedback in the form of consumers’ attitudes and emotional responses toward the brand.
Brand Equity Research
Brand equity research aims to measure the overall value of a brand and its impact on consumer behavior. It involves financial and non-financial data, including factors like brand loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations.
Brand Positioning Research
This research helps businesses identify and refine their unique value proposition in the market. It involves studying competitors, target audience preferences, and market trends to determine the most effective brand positioning strategy.
Brand Tracking
Brand tracking is based on monitoring and measuring key brand metrics over time. It assesses the effectiveness of marketing initiatives, brand campaigns, and overall brand performance. Research shows that organizations that monitor their brands experience stronger rates of inbound and outbound marketing impact and better sales.
Brand Loyalty Research
Brand loyalty research examines the level of customer loyalty and repeat purchase behavior towards a brand. It helps organizations understand the factors driving customer loyalty and identify strategies to enhance customer retention.
For instance, 89% of consumers are loyal to brands that share their values. This means communicating your brand’s values effectively is vital to establishing long-term customer relationships.
How To Conduct Effective Brand Research in 3 Steps
Effective brand research is essential for businesses aiming to strengthen their market presence and resonate with their target audience. These are the three essential steps to conduct brand research:
- Know your research objectives
- Select the best research methods for your needs
- Analyze and interpret data
Step #1: Know Your Research Objectives
Clearly define the objectives of your brand research. What specific aspects of your brand do you want to investigate? Are you interested in understanding brand perception, customer satisfaction, market positioning, or brand awareness?
Clearly outlining your goals will help you determine the appropriate research methods and guide your data collection efforts.
Step #2: Select the Best Research Methods for Your Needs
Choose the most appropriate research methods to gather data based on your objectives. Common options used for brand research are:
- Surveys: Collect quantitative data from a large sample of customers online or in person.
- Interviews: Conduct one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders, such as customers, employees, and industry experts. These provide in-depth qualitative insights into brand perception and experiences.
- Focus Groups: Gather a small group of participants for a guided discussion about your brand. This allows for interactive exploration of perceptions, attitudes, and preferences.
- Observations: Observe and analyze customer behavior and interactions with your brand in real-world settings. This can yield valuable insights into customer experiences and brand interactions.
- Online Listening: Monitor online conversations, social media platforms, and review websites to collect insights on how customers perceive and discuss your brand.
- Secondary Research: Review existing market research reports, industry publications, and competitor analyses for relevant data on the market landscape, consumer trends, and competitor strategies.
Step #3: Analyze and Interpret Data
Analyze your collected data to draw meaningful insights. Use appropriate techniques, such as statistical analysis for survey data or thematic analysis for qualitative information. Look for patterns, trends, and key findings that address your research objectives.
Data analysis will allow you to better understand your brand's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Identify areas for improvement, potential positioning strategies, and insights to guide your brand strategy and marketing efforts.
Alternatively, you can collaborate with a professional big data analytics company to ensure you reach the right conclusions.
3 Brand Research Best Practices
Maximize the value of brand research and gain deep insights to enhance your strategies by following these best practices:
1. Survey Customers on Brand Perception
Perhaps the oldest and easiest trick in the book, conducting surveys is an excellent way to measure how your customers think of your brand. Asking the right questions is vital in quantifying brand perception, so be sure to know what kind of answers you want to gather.
Here are some questions you can include in your survey:
- What three words would you use to describe the brand?
- What first comes to mind when you think of our brand?
- Can you tell us about your previous experience with the brand?
- How likely are you to recommend the brand to a friend?
2. Track Social Media Presence
Leverage social listening tools to see what your followers and other online consumers say about your brand. Think of this as an “ears to the ground” approach, where you can gather insights about brand perception from your audience.
Maintaining a steady social media presence also allows you to reach customers and their concerns more quickly compared to email or phone calls. This strengthens your connection with customers and builds trust — a critical factor in branding, as 46% of US consumers are willing to pay more for brands they can trust.
3. Conduct a Brand Audit
A more comprehensive and precise way to evaluate audience perception is through a brand audit. It is a deep dive into your current processes, whether your services still match your customers’ needs, and how they impact your business.
As a holistic process, a brand audit should cover three aspects:
- Internal branding: This involves your organization’s core values, beliefs, and long-term goals.
- External branding: These are the main touchpoints your customers engage with, such as your logo, visual imagery, content strategy, and messaging.
- Customer experience: This measures how customers have experienced your brand so far, whether through sales, support, or social media.
3 Expert Tips for Conducting Brand Research
A strategic approach to brand research will help you unlock deeper insights that will help you improve brand strategy. Here are some expert tips for conducting effective brand research:
1. Leverage Technology
The following tools will give you a comprehensive view of brand perception:
- Customer feedback: SurveyMonkey and Google Forms are free online tools that distribute surveys and gather feedback from customers.
- Interviews and focus groups: Remesh engages large groups of participants to collect insights and analyze audience data.
- Social listening: Brandwatch is the world’s largest archive of user opinion, where you can monitor brand mentions and track industry trends.
- Competitive analysis: Similarweb provides comprehensive insights into competitors’ activities, including traffic, audience engagement, marketing strategies, and more.
- Brand tracking: YouGov BrandIndex provides daily insights into brand value, awareness, word-of-mouth exposure, and many other critical metrics.
2. Segment Your Audience
Brand perception may vary depending on a customer’s age, location, personality, and more differentiating elements. By analyzing these groups separately, you can collect granular data on brand perception.
You can segment audiences based on the following:
- Demographics: age, gender, education, occupation, income, family size
- Geographic location: city, region, country, urban vs. rural, climate
- Psychographic data: values, lifestyle, interests
- Behavior: brand loyalty, purchase behavior, browsing behavior
- Culture: ethnicity, cultural beliefs
Collect data through surveys and questionnaires to understand audience demographics, preferences, and behaviors. Leverage customer relationship management (CRM) and social media management tools to record and analyze audience data. You can also access demographic and psychographic data from market research firms like Nielsen and Experian.
3. Apply Insights
The value of brand research lies in applying the insights gained to meet business objectives. Use this data to develop a stronger and more clearly defined brand identity that resonates with your target audience. You will also be able to tailor your brand messaging across all customer segments, strengthening brand affinity and loyalty.
Brand Research: Key Takeaways
Standing out in a crowded market isn’t an easy feat. This makes branding research a critical step for any business wanting to carve a niche for itself. With brand research, you gather essential information to set the foundations of your brand or make it even stronger.
Building or growing a brand guided by the appropriate data ensures success. If you’d rather focus on other operational tasks and have professionals do the research for you, partner with one of the top branding companies.
Brand Research FAQs
1. How to do good brand research?
Effective brand research has well-defined objectives that provide clear guidance throughout the research process. If you've chosen a research method that aligns with your objectives and allows you to collect relevant data, you're on the right track.
Ensure that your data collection is comprehensive and diverse, so you gain a thorough understanding of brand perception. By following these steps, you can be confident you're doing good brand research.
2. What are the main differences between brand research and brand analysis?
Brand research is the process of collecting insights about a brand’s current standing in the market and how audiences perceive it. This is an exploratory process designed to gather a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data.
In contrast, brand analysis involves evaluating and interpreting the data collected during the research phase. Its purpose is to provide actionable insights and drive decision-making to refine and optimize brand strategy.
3. When should a business perform brand research?
Periodically monitoring brand perception is essential for long-term business success. An in-depth brand study is also needed at these critical stages:
- New product launch
- Market expansion
- Significant changes in the market
