Consumer attitudes and behavioural patterns are constantly changing. So, it’s important for marketers to monitor changes in consumer behaviour and brand perception. It not only allows them to adapt marketing strategies to current conditions but also to get an understanding of how shifts in attitude influence a brand’s positioning.
 
We’ve been measuring consumer attitudes and preferences for decades. And we’ve learned a thing or two about collecting and delivering high-quality data to help businesses make the right decisions. So, we’ve put together a short list of some of the key metrics we often recommend when clients want a better understanding of what’s going on inside consumers’ hearts and minds.

Brand awareness

How well-recognised is my brand? Is it the first thing that comes to mind when consumers are asked to name a brand in my segment? How well-embedded is my brand in consumers’ consciousness? These are the sorts of questions that measuring brand awareness can answer about consumers familiarity with your brand – both when it comes to name as well as the attributes that differentiate you from your competitors.
 
Brand performance surveys are the obvious choice for measuring brand awareness. And Norstat’s reliable consumer panels, combined with our efficient data collection platforms and questionnaire design skills can help you determine whether or not you are in consumers’ minds – literally.

Brand loyalty

Which consumers are dedicated to your brand regardless of your competitors’ offerings? And what are the underlying motivations behind their loyalty? Measuring brand loyalty – the strength and level of these positive associations – can help businesses understand consumers’ emotional connection to their brand and what influences it.
 
Ideally, brand loyalty should be measured on a regular basis to track trends and identify significant changes. While companies’ own data from loyalty programmes or campaigns can provide insights on brand loyalty, customer surveys can provide a more detailed and broader perspective.

Buyer intent

Sometimes referred to as “purchase intent”, this metric captures how willing or likely a consumer is to buy a given product or service within a given period of time. Measuring buyer intent can help reveal a marketing campaign’s impact, as well as return on investment.
 
Most businesses and brands already collect data from their own digital touchpoints such as websites, apps, and emails. But these insights only shed light on a fragment of the consumer’s journey. It says very little about the behaviour leading up to the interaction or how the digital interaction might have influenced buyer intent.

But it is now possible to collect behavioural data with little or no consumer interaction. Modern technology also makes it possible to monitor all digital activity, providing cross-device data to help you paint a more accurate picture of buyer intent. However, data from digital touchpoints can’t efficiently uncover every step in a consumer journey.
Traditional market research can uncover the missing pieces of the buyer intent puzzle

Net promoter score (NPS)*

This important market research metric is often called “the score you need to know”. It’s a tool that can be used to measure the loyalty of a company or brand’s customer relations. NPS identifies your brand’s Promoters (loyal customers), Passives (satisfied but indifferent customers) and Detractors (unsatisfied customers). You can use Net Promoter Score as the key measure of your customers’ overall perception of your brand.
 
The Net Promoter Score can help you identify your primary focus when working with your brands’ customer experience. This can help reduce churn and create customer promoters that enhance and accelerate the growth of your business. NPS is sometimes used as a proxy for brand loyalty and is one of the most common measurement requests among Norstat clients.

Brand Tracking

Tracking your brand’s performance on a continuous basis is necessary to understand ever-changing attitudes, behaviours, and opinions – and how these influence your brand. Brand tracking measurements can provide insights on the current positioning of your brand as well as progress toward reaching your long-term strategic goals.

Brand tracking also make it easier to identify which strategic areas have improved over time, and which areas need more attention moving forward. Ultimately, this metric can help businesses achieve a stronger market position, ensure you are on track, or gain momentum.

Ad Performance

Consumers are constantly exposed to marketing stimuli. They are constantly bombarded with advertisements and other brand communication across a range of media platforms. But do marketers really know the impact of these ads? Did they achieve their stated goals? How well did they perform?
 
Measuring ad performance allows you to verify the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and is a pivotal part of any successful advertising strategy. Testing your ad or campaign performance enables you to make your advertising more effective and hence optimize your ad spend and expand your reach.

PS: don’t forget to measure

Measuring the metrics above is a great place to start for getting a better understanding of the emotional and rational drivers behind consumer behaviour that are pivotal for helping know your world. At Norstat, we try to go one step further by assembling and presenting such metrics in an automated dashboard that lets you monitor what’s happening in real-time.
 
We work closely with our clients to bring together relevant metrics in a way that makes it easier to see and understand patterns and correlations, providing another level of insight at a glance. Making the right decisions is hard enough as it is. But with Norstat’s high-quality data and automated dashboards, you can be certain that you’ve got the insights you need to understand consumer behaviour in an ever-changing world.
 
*Note: NPS, Net Promoter & Net Promoter Score are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.