First things first. Let's get back to basics around reasons why focusing on brand awareness, for any brand, in any industry, is a necessity.

Brand reputation and buyer behaviour are highly correlated. According to a study by Attest, a UK consumer research platform, 70.6% of consumers would stop buying from a brand if it didn't align with their personal values, meaning brand reputation certainly does play a crucial role in marketing. To stand out as a brand, it's important to talk about and keep repeating your brand purpose in an authentic story.

We tend to trust brands we recognise. So any effort you put into brand awareness automatically boosts all your other marketing.

The more your target audience knows about your brand, products or services, the faster they'll be to embrace your brand and make a purchase. People who have already heard of your brand will be much more likely to click on a Google or social ad, for instance.

If your brand fulfils customer needs, it will be rewarded with customer loyalty and even ambassadorship for your brand. That means you have to spend less on customer acquisition, and that pretty much says it all.

Brand value is part of strategic business value. A good brand reputation makes your company more attractive to investors or purchasers, which will have a positive impact on company value.

Marketers are increasingly being asked to allocate budgets based on a measurable ROI. You can use the tools below to turn brand awareness into a KPI and give it the space it deserves in your marketing budget.

• Brand monitoring: Keeping track of what's being said about your brand, by whom and in what tone, provides both qualitative and quantitative insight into your brand's success.
• Direct traffic: The more someone remembers your brand, the more likely they are to go directly to your website. That means direct traffic is a great KPI for evaluating how your brand reputation is doing and how it's evolving.
• Search volume: You can monitor search volumes on your brand terms and fluctuations. These are mentions of your brand name or products through blogs, links, forums, social comments, etc. You can use tools like Brand24 and track the evolution.
• Social engagement: Follower numbers and reach on your posts also give you an idea of how many people know your brand. Keeping track of your social media engagement (shares, likes, comments, etc.) can help you measure brand awareness.
• External backlinks: External links can improve visibility for your brand and website. To measure your brand's external link performance, simply monitor the number and quality of external links to your site and referral traffic.
• Market research: You can go all out with research, but you can also take a more scaled-back approach. Asking visitors to your website how they found you and whether they'd heard of your brand before will go a long way. Also be sure to ask new and current customers how they found out about your brand. And keep track of the results, of course.
• Conversions: Track conversions and engagement on your website. By measuring the impact of direct traffic, referrals or social media traffic on business outcomes (sales opportunities and effective sales), you can demonstrate the ROI of brand awareness.

Measuring the ROI on brand awareness seems challenging, but can be quite straightforward. If you have questions about your brand's reputation or want to know how we can help make a positive influence, we'd be glad to share our thoughts.