Many businesses, small or large, can benefit from outsourcing their brand tracking needs.
As a company grows, internal resources are less likely to have the capacity to design and analyze market research data on an ongoing basis.
For this reason, many business decision-makers move toward partnering with brand tracking companies to reduce their workload.
Especially with only 48% of marketers saying they measure metrics related to branding, doing so could be a huge opportunity to get ahead of the competition.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss what you can expect from working with a third-party brand tracking research company and tips for how to select the best partner.
Brand Tracking Research vs. Ad-Hoc Projects
Brand tracking studies vary from ad-hoc market research because they are conducted on an ongoing basis. Ad-hoc projects are one-and-done studies where brands conduct a survey once and never revisit it again.
Whereas, tracking studies measure objectives over time and therefore require several different stages to see how the data has changed.
Brand tracking study examples include:
- A quarterly customer survey
- An annual employee survey
- A monthly campaign evaluation survey
To learn more about this style of market research, watch this video.
💡 The Key Takeaway: An ad-hoc market research study is one and done. It makes it more challenging to see if the goals of the market research were met. Therefore, many organizations are using brand tracking metrics to see how their key performance indicators change over time based on data-driven recommendations.
Process of Brand Equity Tracking with a Third-Party
Brand tracking requires two major components. A majority of the work will happen in phase one as that includes survey writing, designing, fielding, and analysis.
While the process of working with brand tracking companies will vary, I can speak for the journey our clients experience with Drive Research.
Although I’ll share our process in length, it’s important to know that our team works as quickly as needed. In some instances, a brand tracking survey is launched within 24-hours.
Pre-Phase One
As you begin your search for the best brand tracking agency, you’ll likely receive a handful of quotes and proposals. In this stage, you will learn more about costs, timelines, and unique processes.
While these components of a market research proposal are important, I also recommend asking follow-up questions to learn more about each firm.
- What experience do you have tracking brands?
- Have you worked with other companies in my industry?
- What level of consultation does your firm provide?
In addition to these key questions, these initial interactions can tell you a lot about a potential partner.
Does the proposal look clean and professional? Was it sent in a timely manner? How responsive are they?
A brand tracking company will never treat you as well as they do when they’re trying to win your business. So, if your early experiences are less than stellar, move on to the next.
Need help creating a market research request for proposal (RFP)? Use our free RFP template to save hours of work.
Phase One
- Kickoff meeting. Drive Research schedules a brief Zoom meeting to discuss more of your unique objectives. Here we’ll discuss your goals, potential survey questions, how you plan to use the data, and more.
- Writing tracker survey questions. Based on your type of brand tracking study, our team creates a custom-written survey for your approval.
- Programming the questionnaire. After your approval, our brand tracking agency performs rigorous programming checks to ensure the survey is working as it should.
- Fielding the survey (soft launch). Drive Research recommends fielding the questions to a small percentage of respondents. Doing so allows for one last quality check before launching it to the rest of our panel.
- Fielding the survey (full launch). During this stage, our market research firm provides a live data link so you can see results as soon as they come in.
- Cleaning the data. Before closing the survey, it is important to complete data cleaning quality checks. This includes looking for duplicate and illegitimate responses. Only once the goal number of survey completes is met do we complete fieldwork.
- Creating a brand tracking report. We offer various reporting packages based on your needs. Whether it is a short topline summary or a more comprehensive option with key findings and recommendations – you name it!
Phase Two
- Changes to the survey. When it is time for the next iteration of the survey, our team will work with you to make any necessary changes to the original survey. We recommend our own 80-20 rule where 80% of the questions should remain the same and 20% of the questions should be swapped out to account for new insights.
- Fielding the survey. After the survey is approved and programmed, it’s time to collect new responses. This step again includes both a soft launch and a full launch. Similar to phase one of the tracker study, Drive Research also performs all data cleaning quality checks.
- Reporting. Here you have the same reporting options (topline or comprehensive market research report). As this is the second wave we also provide a brand tracking KPI scorecard to compare and contrast the data.
- Next steps. The steps in phase two are repeated again and again based on the type of brand tracking research – whether it is monthly, quarterly, or on an annual basis.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Brand tracking research companies like Drive Research will provide end-to-end project management. From survey design to analysis, our team carries the brunt of the work so you can focus on other responsibilities.
Contact Our Brand Tracking Company
Drive Research is a full-service market research company specializing in brand tracking. We partner with organizations across the country to measure ongoing feedback from customers, target markets, employees, and more.
Interested in receiving a quote? Contact our brand tracking research agency today.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Emily Carroll
A SUNY Cortland graduate, Emily has taken her passion for social and content marketing to Drive Research as the Marketing Manager. She has earned certificates for both Google Analytics and Google AdWords.
Learn more about Emily, here.
