Very similar to a brand equity study, it is important to set up a process to measure key performance indicators (KPIs) through a corporate image study.
The corporate image is something that impacts all aspects of your business with consumers or business decision-makers.
It is made up of many different features of corporate image and it is important to define exactly what those are.
A corporate image survey can provide your company with the following:
- Features: Find out exactly what defines your corporate image including key products and services.
- Impact: How much does your corporate image impact purchases? Measure this through research.
- Comparison: How does your corporate image rank against key competitors? Benchmark it.
- Satisfaction: How satisfied are your customers with your brand image? Collect those ratings.
- Areas to Fix: Discover through the study what areas of your image are positive and negative.
How to Evaluate Corporate Image?
There are several options to explore when measuring corporate image. Each methodology offers its own pros and cons.
A corporate image market research firm, like Drive Research, will consult with you to choose the best option for your business and how to communicate with customers and potential customers to collect feedback.
Online Survey
Among the different methodologies, an online survey will be your most preferred method. Why? They can be done quickly, cost-effectively, and involve the least number of professional hours.
With one click of the mouse, a survey invite can be sent to thousands of respondents. When compared to mail or telephone it is a lot quicker and less expensive.
In terms of mail, there is time, additional postage, assembly, and printing expenses. With phone data collection, there are many hours where survey team members need to call and talk to respondents.
Mail Survey
In some cases, our corporate image survey firm works with our clients to administer the survey via mail. This may be because the company does not have a list of email address, or the email addresses are out-of-date.
In other cases, the firm regularly sends mailings to customers so the base of respondents is used to this form of communication.
Although it is more expensive, sending a mail or paper survey may stand out because it’s unexpected. It has resulted in higher response rates than we expected for this type of market research.
Here are 4 situations where it would make more sense to send a mail survey.
Phone Survey
If you are looking for a more personal touch when conducting your brand image study, telephone calls may be the best approach.
Rather than the passive or one-way communication through an online or mail survey, a phone survey is more engaging and is a true two-way data collection approach.
The callers are able to dive deeper into responses and ask why? With online or mail surveys, you are at the mercy of how much, or how little someone is willing to type.
Two Sides of the Corporate Image Coin
Customers
This is the easier side of the coin. As part of your corporate image study, you should collect feedback from your customers.
Ask your customers questions around:
- Factor(s) in choice
- Word(s) or phrase(s) that come to mind when you think of the brand
- Net promoter score (NPS)
- Drivers to satisfaction
Since they are customers and have done or continue to do business with you, the results will be more favorable.
It is also important to use a third-party corporate image study firm to complete the survey so your customers can be up-front and honest.
What is the most important question to ask in a customer survey? Our team of experts makes their case in this video.
Non-Customers
This is an important audience to receive feedback from. It is the audience who chooses not to do business with you.
The light they will shed on your corporate image may be less favorable. This will be more of a representative sample however and help you truly identify dislikes, common perceptions, and potential negative features of your corporate identity.
Here is out to conduct a survey with non-customers.
Step-by-Step Process to a Corporate Image Survey
- Discovery call: our team speaks to you to learn more about your objectives and goals.
- Proposal: our market research firm outlines a detailed proposal on the process, timeline, and costs.
- Sign-off: if you deem our corporate image survey company to be the best fit, sign, and return.
- Agenda: before the kickoff meeting, our team sends a 1-page agenda outlining the meeting.
- Kickoff meeting: the get-together lasts 30 to 60 minutes highlighting all of the key milestones.
- Workplan: within 24-hours of the kickoff meeting, our team outlines all steps and dates.
- Survey draft: based on the objectives, our team drafts a questionnaire to assess your corporate image.
- Survey feedback: your team reviews the draft questionnaire and offers comments and edits.
- Programming: once final, our team programs the survey, puts it into paper form, or a call script.
- Internal testing: once programmed or formatted, our entire team tests the survey.
- Client testing: we send your team a final version of the document or link to test internally.
- List exchange: your team exchanges your customer list in Excel or CSV with contact information.
- Introductory notice: your team sends a pre-notice prior to fieldwork, we provide the template.
- Soft-launch: once we begin, we randomly survey a small group of respondents.
- Full-launch: if there are no errors or issues, our team opens up fieldwork to the entire database.
- Online portal: once the fieldwork is open, our team provides a reporting dashboard with live responses.
- Quality audits: as the responses roll in, our team reviews and audit each record for quality assurance.
- Close fieldwork: once we reach our response goal (400, 1000, etc.) our team closes fieldwork.
- Analysis: our work now begins on review and tabulating responses to make interpretations.
- Draft report: we put together a comprehensive report with recommendations and an infographic.
- Debrief: we meet with your team to walk you through all of the insights and next steps.
- Final deliverables: post-debrief our team makes all corrections or additions to wrap up the project.
Contact Our Corporate Image Study Company
Interested in exploring a corporate or company image survey with a third-party market research firm? Contact our expert team of analysts to explore options around methodology, timeline, and costs. Our firm will put together a proposal that answers your objectives, in a quick and affordable way.
Contact us using one of the following:
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
