Every asked yourself, “Is my brand strategy working?” Yes? No. Most importantly, do you even have one? No matter your answer, creating a compelling brand identity, whether it’s online via a website or offline through offline through marketing collateral such as business cards, is one important facet of a successful marketing strategy. A strong brand can help to build customer loyalty and enhance engagement between your customers and products.
According to Aly Saxe, a thought leader in the PR industry, it is important to track all sales and marketing programs to understand campaign successes and failures better. According to Ms. Saxe, brand strategy is not a nebulous concept, but a PR tool that can be tracked and monitored with precision.
3 Elements for Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Brand Strategy
A successful brand promotes three essential elements for the brand:
- Growth of Network/Reach
- Robust Conversations
- Thought Leadership
Measuring these components will provide insight into whether or not the strategy is successful, and if not, which areas to adjust.
1) An increase in reach within the desired market
The growth of your online network in your market is easily measured by the number of social media followers and references to the brand by others. By tracking social media metrics, including trackbacks, many valuable insights can be reached.
A campaign that reaches a lot of users and then falls off is a good start but cannot be considered truly successful. A successful brand strategy accomplishes both an increase in exposure as well as measurable and continued engagement. This can be achieved by having a strong sense of who the target audience is and how best to reach them.
2) Robust conversation amongst end-users via social media
Social media works best when there is a healthy discussion of your brand. Are users commenting, providing feedback, and references your company in general conversation? According to freshsparks.com, one of the most important aspects of a successful brand is consistency in messaging, both in product presentation and social media campaigns. Online advertising and social media presence must create a streamlined experience for the user.
By having a strong mission statement and strategy to meet outreach goals, branding can be adjusted and tweaked upon analysis of campaign data results. Knowing where you want to go is the foundation for a successful strategy.
3) The perception of the brand as a leader in the industry
Brand ambassadorship and being considered a thought leader in the industry is the pinnacle of a successful brand identity. This is the goal of a successful strategy, as thought leaders strongly impact the industry in innovation and direction. Brands that are sought out as the standard bearers of their industries enjoy strong loyalty, identity, and influence.
Creating a perception of leadership takes time and dedication to the strategy; it is important to stick with the map created at the start of the campaign and remain consistent in messaging and public communication. Having a figurehead that is strongly attached to the brand and products, helps to increase reliability and confidence in the messaging.
A Smart Brand Strategy Will Create a Strong Brand
To create a strong brand, and to be able to measure the success of your strategy, it is important to have defined and measurable goals, and to make adjustments based on data analysis of the effectiveness in reaching your target audience.
A strong brand will take commitment and a concentrated effort beyond logos and engaging taglines, but these efforts will pay dividends in customer loyalty and an increased profile that will drive a strong reputation within the market.
As you continue to work on ensuring your brand strategy is effective in the online atmosphere, don’t forget about your offline branding efforts.
For help with strenghthening your offline branding strategy contact us at SilkCards today. We’ll help you create one-of-a-kind marketing collateral that will keep your brand on the minds of your customers and competitors within you market.
