What Is Brand Perception？ [+ How to Improve It in 7 Simple Steps]

Brand perception refers to the customers’ perception and understanding of a brand, encompassing their beliefs, attitudes, and emotions based on their experiences, interactions, and exposure to marketing efforts. The market you operate in is shaped by the thoughts and feelings of consumers. Even if your products or services are superior, how people perceive your brand will determine whether they choose to do business with you or a competitor.

Therefore, it is crucial to assess your brand’s reputation and ensure it aligns with your desired image. This is where measuring brand perception becomes essential.

Here’s a brief outline of what we will discuss:

– What is brand perception?

– Why is brand perception important?

– Key components of brand perception

– 4 best ways to measure brand perception

– How to improve brand perception in 7 steps

To enhance your brand and increase consumer loyalty, join our community of over 200,000 marketers for valuable insights and guidance on enhancing your brand perception and customer interactions.

Brand perception is the customer’s impression of your brand based on their beliefs, emotions, and experiences. It is what consumers think your brand represents, not what your company claims it stands for. Brand perception is crucial in developing personal relationships with customers and winning their loyalty. When deciding between similar items, consumers always consider their emotional connection to the brand.

You can increase your business’s success by fostering customer loyalty, resulting in a 66% increase in favorable online brand mentions and 86% in good word-of-mouth recommendations. Apple is a prime example. Due to the iPhone’s high regard, its owners feel a sense of accomplishment when owning the latest phone, prompting them to upgrade every year.

To ensure you are connecting with the correct audience, you need to learn how they currently feel about your brand and work to improve it. This often requires considering various factors associated with your brand’s image.

Here are some aspects that contribute to how customers form an impression of your brand:

– Visual

– Personality

– Emotional

– Senses

Consumers often make snap judgments based on a brand’s appearance. How you present yourself visually will immediately impact how consumers view your business. The colors you use for your business may profoundly affect how customers feel.

Another factor that might affect how people remember your brand is its personality. You can influence how people view your brand by giving it a distinct voice. Customers’ impressions of businesses are partly shaped by the words and phrases they hear and read.

You can easily win the hearts of your customers with the right mix of promotion and excellent service. Inspiring your audience to feel a specific way through compelling brand storytelling and first-rate customer service can do wonders for your brand perception.

You can utilize audible cues, such as jingles and sound characteristics, to strike an emotional chord with your target audiences. For example, Disney uses olfactory and gustatory cues to elicit a positive, emotional reaction from customers.

To find out how quickly your brand comes to mind when customers consider purchasing a similar product and service, learn about brand salience!

Here are some of the best ways you can measure brand perception:

1. Utilize social media listening

2. Examine online ratings and reviews

3. Conduct brand image surveys

4. Leverage brand-focus forums

Monitoring how customers receive and discuss your brand on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram is essential. By analyzing social data, you can gain insight into the efficacy of your social messaging.

You can use social listening tools that offer a central dashboard and track your brand’s social media activity, providing relevant data on things like:

– The networks that are most helpful in expanding your brand’s reach

– The content type that’s most popular amongst your target audience

– The measurement of your brand’s popularity based on the amount of positive attention it receives in real-time

– The amount of time each user spends browsing your brand pages

– The sponsored content and posts that have the highest success rate

By listening to what users say about your brand online, you’ll be better equipped to quickly reply and expand your social following in record time.

Examine online reviews and ratings to get helpful insights into what you are doing wrong and how to improve. Reading and monitoring reviews is not enough; it’s also essential that you respond effectively to them, keeping in mind the impression you wish to convey.

Any encounter with customer service is a tremendous opportunity to improve your company’s image, so always avoid sounding defensive.

You can use marketing research surveys to glean your customers’ demographic information and impressions about your brand. Take a look at who to get in touch with first:

– Long-term clients

– Recently lost clients

– New clients

– Competitor’s clients

Brand perception surveys don’t take much time or effort to complete, allowing satisfied or dissatisfied consumers to provide feedback using closed and open-ended questions easily.

Gathering brand-focus groups in person or online allows you to hear the pros and cons of your brand directly from the people who use it and care enough to voice their thoughts.

With more intricate networks, online brand forums become even more valuable. By creating a consumer forum online, you can use the information you gather to close market gaps, shape product ideas, and solidify brand loyalty.

Now that you know the answer to the question “what is brand perception,” you can start improving people’s opinions of your company with these seven easy measures:

– Determine your ideal target market

– Place a premium on customer support

– Ensure coherence in your branding efforts

– Share original, valuable content

– Host social media giveaways and competitions

– Employ influencer marketing

– Share customer reviews and testimonials

The best approach is to narrow down a particular market segment to promote your goods and services more efficiently through a well-thought-out communication strategy.

By targeting customers whose demands are a good fit for your products and services, you can focus your advertising efforts where they’ll make an impact and generate high returns. You may also see an increase in both new and returning customers.

One of the most efficient methods to increase customer loyalty and improve brand perception is to provide personalized customer care to each consumer.

Speaking with consumers in a kind, personable manner can help you better fulfill their needs and create a positive image of your company.

This method is excellent for forging more profound and meaningful connections with your clientele.

Brand consistency leads to a positive reputation among consumers, which clarifies your offerings and gives you credibility in the eyes of your target audience.

Maintaining brand uniformity is crucial to winning the confidence and loyalty of your target audience.

Your logo’s color scheme can serve as a starting point for creating a consistent brand experience throughout all of your online and offline marketing materials.

By sharing information with the public, you can educate consumers on the merits of your business and the quality of the goods and services it offers.

Content marketing is one of the best strategies for reaching more potential customers and establishing the brand perception you want them to have.

The sheer number of people who use various social media platforms makes them ideal for marketing efforts and lead generation.

Running competitions is a great way to get users excited about your brand. It can prompt them to tag their friends and have current followers share your profile with others who they believe will be interested in what you offer, which may cause your brand to be popular among users.

By liking, sharing, and discussing your social media material, your consumers will do most of the promotion for you.

You can cultivate a positive brand perception through partnerships with influencers who reflect your brand’s qualities. Advertising your product alongside well-known people may also boost recognition.

People put more faith in the recommendations of celebrities and other influential people when they are looking to buy a product or service for themselves.

Posting positive reviews from prior buyers is a great way to build trust in your company’s products and services. Customers will feel more at ease knowing that the goods and services you offer have been thoroughly tried and tested.

At WebFX, we provide digital marketing services to help you spread the word about your business and forge deeper bonds with your core customers. We have more than 500 experienced marketers on our team that know what it takes to make a lasting impression on a brand and convert potential buyers.

Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist!