What Is Brand Awareness & How To Measure It
Savannah Trotter • 21 Aug 2023
No matter the size or stage of your organization, brand awareness is essential.
Why? It's pretty difficult to sell a product or service if no one knows your brand. Especially in the era of online shopping.
While businesses frequently spend ad budgets on brand awareness campaigns, most struggle to effectively measure the tangible success of their efforts.
That is where brand awareness surveys come into play...
What is Brand Awareness
Before we dive into the nitty- gritty, let's take a look at brand awareness as a metric.
In market research, brand awareness refers to how familiar consumers are with your brand and how well they can recognize or recall it. When measuring brand awareness, there are two main types:
Unaided / Top-of-Mind Awareness
Unaided awareness refers to the brand that first comes to mind when a consumer is asked about a specific product or category. It indicates a high level of brand recall and is often a significant factor in purchase decisions.
Aided Awareness
Aided awareness measures the extent to which consumers can recognize or recall a brand when provided with its name or visual cues. For example, in a survey, respondents may be shown a list of brands and asked which they are familiar with.
Why is Brand Awareness Important?
You can have a well thought-out marketing strategy, advertise heavily, and frequently post on social media. But at the end of the day, nothing beats being top of mind for potential customers when they are shopping for products like yours.
Building brand awareness familiarizes people with your offering and begins the process of differentiating your brand from competitors in your space.
But more importantly, brand awareness opens the door for trust.
In a world where consumers have nearly unlimited choice in every category, brand trust is everything. And brand awareness is the first step. Once consumers get to know your brand they are much more likely to purchase (and keep purchasing) from you.
But this begs the question; how do you measure something that often feels intangible? Here’s how:
How to Measure Brand Awareness
Brands can use several methods to measure and track their brand awareness. Here are some common approaches:
Surveys
Conducting simple one-off surveys with a representative sample is a quick and effective way to get insights into brand awareness. These surveys might include questions surrounding recall (unaided and aided), recognition, and level of familiarity.
Brand Tracking Studies
Brand tracking studies involve regular monitoring of brand metrics over time. These studies use frequent surveys to track changes in brand awareness. By comparing results from different periods, brands can assess whether their awareness levels have increased or decreased. This method can be especially useful when looking to measure the ROI of your marketing and branding efforts.
Brand Recognition Testing
Brand recognition tests involve showing respondents visual cues or brand elements, such as logos or taglines, and assessing their ability to correctly identify the brand. These tests can provide you with solid quantitative data on brand recognition levels.
Brand Awareness Survey Template
Whether you are running a one-off survey or a brand tracking study, you’ll need to ask respondent’s the right questions if you want actionable data. A few key areas to focus on would include:
Overall awareness of your brand compared to others in the category. Perceptions consumers hold about your brandExperiences consumers have had with your brand.
Thankfully, we made it simple. Use the button to get a free survey template developed by the pros on SightX's research team!
Benefits of Measuring Brand Awareness
Measuring brand awareness offers many benefits. Some of the most notable are:
Strategy Development
Measuring your brand awareness provides valuable insights that can inform strategic decision-making. By understanding your current level of brand awareness, you can develop strategies to increase visibility and recognition with your target audience.
Performance Evaluation
Measuring brand awareness allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. By tracking awareness over time, you can assess the impact of different marketing initiatives and identify which strategies are driving results. This evaluation helps optimize marketing budgets and resources by focusing on activities that generate the highest return on investment.
Competitive Advantage
Benchmark your brand awareness against key competitors to identify areas of competitive advantage and areas that need improvement. This knowledge allows you to differentiate your brand, refine your messaging, and gain a stronger foothold in the market.
Targeted Marketing
Analyze brand awareness levels among specific customer segments to better tailor your messaging and channels. This targeted approach enhances brand relevance and increases the likelihood of capturing the attention and loyalty of specific customer groups.
Brand Equity
Brand awareness is a key component of brand equity (the intangible value and strength of a brand). Measuring brand awareness helps businesses understand the relationship between awareness levels and brand perception, loyalty, and customer preferences. By monitoring and improving brand awareness, companies can enhance brand equity and its positive impact on business performance.
Growth Opportunities
If you have been considering a new product launch or market expansion, assessing your brand awareness is crucial. By measuring the awareness levels in your target market, your can gauge market readiness and identify opportunities and challenges.
Measure Your Brand Awareness with SightX
The SightX platform is the only tool you'll ever need for market research: a single, unified solution for consumer engagement, data collection, advanced analysis, and reporting. While powerful enough for insights teams at Fortune 500 companies, the user-friendly interface makes it simple for anyone to start, optimize, and scale their research.
Plus, with SightX's research team, you can gain access to the best thinking in the insights field. Our in-house experts will guide you through every step in the market research process, from survey scripting to analysis support, and everything in-between.
If you're ready to dive into market research, get started today for free!
