branding

Building a strong brand

Every marketeer knows that building a strong and distinctive brand image plays a critical role in business success.  You only need to look at brands like Apple, BMW and Coca Cola to see the power of brand image in action. 

No one doubts that brand building is as important today as it always was.  But what about the brand funnel?

The classic brand funnel

The classic brand funnel has been used to describe how potential customers progress along an emotional journey that has several distinct stages.

First, they become aware of a brand, then familiar, then they desire it enough to consider buying it and then, finally, they buy (if all goes well). 

Not everyone completes this journey.  Some may not even make it before the first one or two steps.  This being the case the role of marketing is to find ways to move as many people as possible through the funnel as quickly as possible.

The old model

Back in the days before digital marketing and the internet, the process of moving potential customers through different stages of the brand funnel was a slow one.  It you are relying on such things as TV advertising, magazine advertising and billboards you have no direct connection between the advert and the sale. 

Sure, a person can see your ad as they walk past a billboard, but they had no way to engage with it or to buy your product.  All they could do was look at the ad and (hopefully) remember it. 

In such a world memory is very important.  The gap between someone seeing an advert and actually visiting a shop where your products are sold could be days, maybe even weeks. 

Times have changed

These days someone can see an ad and instantly go to the online shop to buy your product, all within a matter of a few minutes.  There is a direct connection between advertising and sales that rarely existed in the old pre-digital world. 

Previously there was no direct way to measure how many people had seen a billboard ad or what impact it had had on them.  Now we can see how many people engage with ads and how many of these click through to buy a product.

So, do we even need to worry about the brand funnel anymore? 

Some people have even claimed that the brand funnel has now been ripped apart by the digital environment.  That it is an old, irrelevant model for a non-digital age.  But they would be wrong.

How the funnel works in a digital age

Think about what happens when someone encounters a digital ad for a brand they have never seen before.

The first thing that happens is they see the ad.  That’s the first stage of the brand funnel – awareness.  No one ever bought anything they weren’t aware of.

Next, they absorb the messaging in that ad.  Assuming it hits the mark, they are now more familiar with the offer.  That is the second stage of the funnel. 

Thirdly, let’s say our imaginary customer’s interest is engaged.  If all goes well, they will click through to the online shop – they are now considering a purchase.  Then they make the purchase (we hope).

They have still gone through the exact same process – the only difference is that it has taken minutes, not weeks.

Understanding longer term impacts matter

But digital advertising does not just have a measurable immediate impact. 

Many people see a digital ad and simply don’t engage with it.  Or perhaps they visit your website and buy nothing.  So digital marketing can have a minimal impact in the initial instance.  This might be regarded as a failure, but is it?

As in the pre-digital age, many people might see a digital ad and pretty much walk on by.  However, over time a combination of marketing initiatives may make them more familiar with what you do until, perhaps months later, they buy.

In such instances the classic brand funnel still applies.  That is because digital advertising can have a longer-term intangible influence on brand perceptions as well as delivering immediate sales results.

The role of advocacy

One thing which we know is a lot more important these days is brand advocacy.  This is especially the case when it comes to customers willing to give positive reviews and ratings for your products online.  It can play a critical role in converting interest into sales and many customers will actively seek out such reviews online to help them make their decision.

This is a new phenomenon of the internet age – and an especially important one.  Promoting advocacy is therefore a key goal for marketeers.

However, as it turns out this isn’t new – it is just more.  In the days before the internet we had a name for this phenomenon – it was called “word of mouth”.  Everyone knew it was important but of course it was incredibly difficult to measure, let alone influence. 

Advocacy has always a key element in the brand funnel.  All the internet has done is made this a lot more visible and measurable. 

What we now need to be able to do is really understand what makes some people become advocates and others not – and how we can influence this process.

The role of brand tracking surveys

As we can measure many of the immediate results of a digital marketing campaign we don’t need a brand tracker to measure this. 

However, if we want to build our brand over time, we still need to consider the cumulative impact of our marketing on brand perceptions (beyond the short term measurable impacts). 

That said, we need to carefully design any brand tracking survey to ensure it can deliver something of value.  And that means looking at how we can use such tools to deliver some of the things that the more immediate and direct measures we can get from the internet might not be able to tell us. That means using trackers more to:

• Explore why people fail to engage.
• Investigate why people fail to move all the way through the funnel.
• Understand what we might try in future that can engage such people.
• Look at what aspects of our brand image we should focus on in future campaigns.
• Understand negative and positive aspects of our brand image we need to address.

Where brand trackers can become bogged down and stale is when they are used solely for tracking what has happened and never for testing any forward-thinking ideas.  Ultimately brand tracking surveys can only remain relevant if they are able to elevate what they deliver from simple metrics monitoring to providing insight for actionable change.

If you’d like to learn more about using market research to manage your brand image please feel free to contact us or have a look on our website for more information.