Building awareness for consumer products viewed as commodities can be a challenge.
As a result, many businesses rely on brand health tracker surveys to accurately measure buyer awareness, perception, and likelihood to purchase.
For example, fresh fruit has very few household brand names that your average consumer would be able to recall top-of-mind.
If you’re trying to grow your brand in this space, what is your best option?
You always have to start somewhere, so our market research company recommends building a baseline of what consumers know about your brand first.
What is a Brand Health Tracker Survey?
“Tracking” is the generic term for any kind of study that looks at a brand’s performance over time.
This could either be during seasonal cycles or during marketing campaigns, in order to understand how the brand is doing against its competition.
Any study could be considered a tracking study, even if it is done once a year for multiple years, as the purpose of a tracking study is that it is consistent over time in order to see changes and results.
Brand health tracker surveys are used to measure the current state of awareness, associations, perceptions, interest, advocacy, and more for a brand.
Ultimately, this type of market research empowers your business to utilize data-driven decision-making based on reliable insights directly from your target buyer.
To understand the process of a brand health tracking study, I will discuss a real-world example of a recent market research study.
Our market research firm helped build a foundation for a grape brand that needed to understand where they stood in the market.
Recommended Reading: Ultimate Guide to Brand Tracking
What Metrics to Include in a Brand Health Tracker Survey
When creating a successful tracking study, there are many metrics you can use based on what information you are looking to get out of your study.
Below are some key measures to include in your tracking study:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): A timeless measure that asks the simple question of “How likely are you to recommend this to your friends and family?”
- Brand/Product Purchase: Tells you how often customers purchase from your brand and identifies pre-existing customers.
- Brand Awareness: Measures customer’s ability to recognize a brand and can also be a good way to understand the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
- Brand/Product Associations: This is an opportunity for customers to leave positive or negative associations through open text feedback.
Tips for Executing a Brand Health Tracker Survey
A brand health tracking study can be done by mail, over the phone, or online and provide real-time insights into what your customers are thinking about.
However, tracking studies often involve multiple stages and there are important steps to take to ensure you are getting the most out of your study!
Here are some tips to follow:
- Identify project objectives. Understand what information the client is looking to get out of the study such as objectives, goals, and audiences.
- Write quality survey questions. While writing great survey questions is a skill, it is important to make sure they are free of bias and will be able to answer what the client wants to get out of the survey.
- Programming efficiently. Ensure that the survey runs like its supposed to and free of errors before fieldwork beings.
Deliver actionable information and results: reporting is the most important part of any tracking survey, and shares insights and facts gathered from the data
Objectives of the Brand Health Tracker Survey
A full-service insights and strategy firm in Minneapolis, MN partnered with Drive Research to conduct a market research study for a grape brand in California.
The goals of the market research project were to establish a baseline including:
- Awareness
- Purchase interest
- Comparison to competitive brands
The survey would be designed to be fielded and tracked annually.
The data and findings from the market research provided the client with a foundation for tracking brand health as well as the impact of marketing executions.
Recommended Reading: Benefits of Continuous Performance Measurement and Tracking
Approach to the Brand Health Tracker Survey
To address the objectives for the insights and strategy firm and its grape brand client, Drive Research recommended the following market research approach.
This included a quantitative online survey among the general population within the U.S. geography.
Online surveys are often utilized for brand tracking because they offer quality, measurable insights brands can utilize right away.
Additionally, they are in many instances the most cost-effective market research methodology.
Details of the Brand Health Tracker Surveys
- All respondents were consumers in the United States.
- The survey was blinded. Which meant respondents did not know it was sponsored by the grape brand when starting the survey.
- The online survey took an average of 12 minutes to complete and included 43 questions.
- The survey received 1,000 responses.
- Fieldwork for the survey was completed in less than one week, beginning on January 5 and lasting until January 11, 2021.
Analysis of the Brand Health Tracker Survey
Our market research company also utilized various analysis techniques for the grape brand.
Heat Maps
Heat maps can identify the most and least favorite areas of an image.
Respondents can even leave comments to provide context to their feedback. Review some heat map question examples here.
Agreement Scales
Agreement scales under the visual can help validate messaging and identify misinterpretations.
Text Analytics
For a more advanced analysis of the open-ended responses, text analytics can identify underlying themes such as likes and dislikes.
Sentiment analysis offers another layer of insights within the open-ended responses by revealing drivers of positive and negative feedback.
Recommended Reading: 5 Benefits of Using Text Analytics for Open-Ended Survey Responses
Outcomes of the Brand Health Tracker Survey
The detailed findings from the survey outlined in a market research report remain confidential with the insights and strategy firm and its CPG client.
The market research answered the following research objectives:
- How do consumers purchase and use grapes?
- What are the key brand associations with the brand and its competitors?
- What impression(s) do less-familiar consumers have of the brand?
- What is the advocacy among consumers familiar with the brand?
- How well do consumers view current branding and advertisements?
The comprehensive research report included a background and methodology, an executive summary of findings, implications, an infographic, and an appendix.
The appendix featured a detailed question-by-question breakdown of the survey and a final copy of the survey document.
Additional deliverables of the brand health tracking study included:
- A scorecard with key performance indicators (KPIs).
- An Excel cross-tabulation banner file breaking the data down into key segments.
- A full data file showing all responses were delivered separately.
Conduct Brand Health Tracker Surveys with Drive Research
A successful tracking study has the opportunity to look at consumers shifting attitudes, opinions, and behaviors over time to understand how they have changed.
At Drive Research, we conduct tracking studies often and can see the benefits of continuously measuring and tracking performance as the best way to provide fresh insight to clients about their target market and customers.
Our experts are well equipped to develop an insightful brand tracker study for brands across the country and globe.
Interested in learning in receiving a proposal or quote for a tracking study? Contact our team today!
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Tim Gell
As a Research Analyst, Tim is involved in every stage of a market research project for our clients. He first developed an interest in market research while studying at Binghamton University based on its marriage of business, statistics, and psychology.
Learn more about Tim, here.
