How to Conduct a Brand Awareness Survey in 5 Steps
- Define Your Survey Objectives
The objective of the survey will determine the research tools that will be used. Why are you conducting this survey in the first place? Is a particular product or service not performing well? Or somebody in the boardroom wants a measurable metric on brand equity? Or is there a need to benchmark the performance of each brand or business unit? Or is it simply to get quality feedback from existing customers or clients on how to improve your product or service? Or is it to get buy-in for a bigger rebranding project? Answer the question, “WHY?” and you will find the answers on how to go about conducting this survey.
- Define Your Target Audience
Brand awareness can come from two places: internal and external. Do your employees know about the corporate brand or the product or service brand? Are they actively sharing them to their family members or friends? Are their personal values aligned with your corporate core values? Externally, besides existing customers, look at potential customers. What are their demographics and pyschographics? Should the general public be aware of your brand? Do not forget your partners, vendors and suppliers. Do not try to target everybody. Go back to what you are trying to achieve in the first place.
- Design the Survey
Think about whether you want qualitative or quantitative data or a mixture of data (which is usually the case). Open-ended questions help to generate ideas or surface issues which are not so obvious while ranking questions prevent survey fatigue and provide measurable data. Do you want to conduct in-person or online surveys? Are you doing it one-on-one or with a focus group? Is the facilitator sufficiently skilled and experienced? What about the timeframe and cost involved? Are the questions clear and easy to understand? Are you asking industry-based questions such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)? Expert tip: keep your survey simple and short.
- Test & Launch the Survey
Before launching the survey, do remember to testbed it. Test it internally with a colleague who is not involved in the project. Then, test it with a small sample audience. See whether there are errors or issues you missed. Simplify questions or remove redundant and repetitive questions. For focus groups, do iterate the questions because you want to aim for better insights after each session. Survey platforms are aplenty. Some of the popular ones include Google Forms or SurveyMonkey (for smaller outfits) or Qualtrics (for enterprise businesses). To get the correct sample size, use a sample size calculator. If you do not have enough participants to reach your minimum sample size, check out SurveyMonkey Audience, Prolific, Qualtrics Panels or Cint.
- Analyse & Act on the Survey Results
Once you have closed the survey, it’s time to do some number crunching. Use various statistical methods such as regression analysis, frequency analysis or cross-tabulation to make sense of the data. Interpret the results through a micro and macro lens. Do not forget to look at your qualitative data. Data will be just data if it is not translated into actionable data. Which metric is valuable? Can this be part of your Key Performance Indicator or Key Objective that can be measured across a time dimension? How will you present the data to the higher-ups? Get strategic on your data. Are you trying to get buy-in for some bigger project? Make your data work for you.
At Firefish, we are more than happy to guide you along with this brand awareness survey. We usually do this as part of a bigger rebranding project under the Brand Audit phase, in which we try to understand who you are as an individual and as an organisation. That's because we transform your brand from the inside-out.
