Why Brand Health Matters? Find out in this article.

Imagine your brand is an individual – a real-life human being with all the quirks and foibles which give us character. Just as with humans, brands can be ‘healthy’ or – alternatively – ‘unhealthy’. Brands have traits which others may like or dislike about them.

Brands have to contend with some individuals being aware of them as well as some individuals not having a cooking clue who they are or what they do. Brands are likely to serve a purpose, contribute to the broader society, and take a stand on things which matter (when it makes sense for them to).

This might seem like a lot to ask of something which isn’t really a human, however it’s increasingly what people expect – particularly from smaller, less-established brands which are competing with the ‘big dogs’. Lots of small things make up your overall brand health, and in a relentlessly competitive market, a healthy brand can be the ultimate difference between sinking or swimming.

What Is Brand Health?

Brand health is the way in which a company or brand delivers on its promises to its customers. The more pleased customers are with the product or service, the better the brand’s health. In short, the closer that a customer experience is to the brand promise, the healthier the brand is. A healthy brand is a strong brand.

While you are able to measure your company’s financial success making use of sales figures, measuring your brand health requires a different set of metrics so that you are able to understand:

• What individuals think of your brand (brand perception)
• How impressive your brand is (brand recall)
• How individuals interact with your brand (brand attributes), and
• How people buy and utilise your brand (brand purchase).

Brand tracking is essential in order to:

• Monitor the global health of your brand,
• Understand the way that your brand performs for your target audience,
• Inform where to direct your marketing strategy as well as budget,
• Flag up any negative trends and address them at once,
• Benchmark against the competition,
• Assess the effectiveness of your advertising,
• Identify your brand advocates, and
• Achieve brand equity/

When you plan a brand strategy, brand tracking should be built in right at the beginning. It’s how you measure results.

Easier Said Than Done

Building and preserving a strong, healthy, and reputable brand is frequently easier said than done. Brand health is impacted by a number of factors, such as ever-changing technology customers can utilise in order to discover, engage, and comment on an organisation’s brand. Successfully measuring brand health means paying close attention to the metrics which matter, tracking brand health over time, as well as making sense of existing strengths and weaknesses in order to improve brand strategy.

B2B brands with strong brand identities consistently outperform their competitors by 73%, according to McKinsey & Co. The challenge that is faced is how do we measure brand health as well as why does it matter?

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Do you want to learn how to measure brand health? If you do then we recommend that you do our Brand Management Course. Follow this link to find out more.