While uplift may seem like an emotional concept, or possibly something from speculative science fiction, it’s a well-used term of art within marketing. It basically entails improving awareness of your brand through any means or medium. That post you made on social media? Brand uplift. Appearing at a trade show? Brand uplift.
But how do you measure what impact your brand uplift efforts are having on actual customers?
What Brand Uplift actually is (and what it isn’t)
Anything that increases the awareness of your brand and, perhaps more importantly, the positive feelings people have towards it - that’s brand uplift. Paid advertising, unpaid marketing efforts, and (positive) third-party mentions on social media are all primary drivers of brand uplift.
This uplift, when done right, can make an impact at every stage of your marketing funnel. From increased brand awareness, intent, to consideration and long-term repeat custom. It’s important to remember that this isn’t just for huge brands; it can be for businesses of any size.
What brand uplift isn’t is a simple increase in traffic to your website. Digital marketing done right should bring in traffic based on people interested in what you have to offer. Brand uplift is about how people feel about your business.
Measuring Brand Uplift
For brands with the money to spend and the desire to understand the minutiae of how their brand is perceived, measuring brand uplift involves primary market research such as public opinion surveys, focus groups, and even control group studies. Such methods are out of reach of the most ambitious SME.
What is measurable are other metrics. Direct and brand organic search traffic, social media engagement and mentions, and share of voice estimates. Some of these are things that can be done easily with existing data. Others, such as measuring share of voice, depend on the platform you’re using.
Website Traffic
While the total number of visitors won’t tell you much about how users are feeling about your brand, changes in direct traffic can (especially if you have an easy to remember website address). Using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools can also show you how much organic search traffic is actually looking for your company by name.
It’s more than just clicks, though. Engagement counts. When someone searches for you by name, what do they do? Examples of what they might do include:
Visited your website. Made an enquiry/placed an order.
Visited your website. Went away to think about it.
Visited your website. Changed their mind and left.
Saw your Business Profile in the search results, saw your telephone number, and called you.
Searched for your business name. Saw a search ad for your competitor. Clicked that. Went with them instead.
It’s important to be aware of not just what people are doing when they look you up online, you should pay attention to trends, and it’s vital to see what your potential customers see when they do enter your name into their search engine.
Social Media Mentions & Engagement
Measuring how many people are paying attention to your social media posts is important. You might not be in the sort of industry where your content is ever going to go viral, but paying attention to how many impressions you’re getting, not to mention likes and shares, is important to seeing how effective your social media strategy is.
The brand uplift side is mostly related to follower count and those who name drop you. Getting a mention from a new customer writing a glowing and unsolicited review is the ideal, or a recommendation from an existing (or former) customer to a friend asking for suggestions.
Regularly searching for your own name on social media is valuable. It ensures that you’re not missing anything someone might say about you. Negative comments (justified or not) need to be addressed. If someone is complaining about your service, addressing it in an open way can contribute to brand uplift. Afterall, everyone makes mistakes and being seen to be genuinely trying to resolve the matter can be a better advert than people having never heard of you.
Share of Voice
This one is a little more difficult, depending on which platforms your target audience is active on. LinkedIn, for example, allows you to directly compare your competitors’ activities with your own, giving you a fair estimation of your share of the total marketing landscape. Organic impressions of your marketing space are less easy to determine on some other platforms.
Share of voice is also important on search engines, both in terms of organic impressions and paid. Other forms of digital marketing, such as display, video, and the like, are more difficult to calculate, but most tools give you some means of determining how much of the landscape you’re capturing, if only to encourage you to spend more.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of what you measure and what value you put on brand uplift, the end goal should be the same: to increase the paying customers your business attracts and keeps. While you may not have the means to ask the average person on the street what they think of your brand (if they’ve even heard of you), it can always be worthwhile asking your customers how they found you and what they think.
After all, they’ve definitely heard of you, and they’ll definitely have an opinion of you. What’s more, you’ve probably got their contact information. The answers you get will not only inform your brand uplift efforts for the next customer but also give you insights into keeping your existing customers on board.
