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The Branding Process - Monitoring Your Brand

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By Roger Griffin, Associate Partner
FOCUS Business Marketing Intelligence

Once you have established your brand it’s time to monitor it.

Some quick steps to get you started... Monitoring your marketplace may seem like a difficult and intimidating task but it doesn’t have to be. Where can you get started? How can you make progress? Here are 7 quick steps that you can build into your schedule. You may not be able to do all of them, but if you can act on a few you’ll soon start seeing your business in a new way:

1. Visit the retail outlets or Web sites of your competitors:
   Take time to look around, and compare their "offer" to your own. Is your offer clearly differentiated in some significant way as better than your competition to your customers or prospects?
2. Look to your category, in other markets:
   For example, if you have a business in Canada look for similar businesses in the US or Britain via the Internet. If you run a Whistler resort real estate agency, look to real estate agency Web sites in Vail or Aspen resorts in Colorado, or Hawaii. You may find new products, consumer trends, and ways of doing business that give you an insight into how to build your own business.
3. Check out your brand's message, look and feel compared to your competitors:
   What is the ‘promise’ that your competition is making? The Internet is a great source for this information. If you don’t already know, take time to visit competitor Web sites and to better understand their desired brand. How does their desired brand or "promise" differ from yours?
4. "Shop" your own brand and competitors:
   Call the customer services or order hotlines, enquire via their Web sites, and sign up for communications. Do everything that you can do to explore the "points of contact" for your brand and your competitor’s brands. Are they living up to their desired brand? Are you?
5. Keep in touch with the opinion of friends and family:
   Let friends and family know that you value their honest opinion. Stories of everyday experience can lead to valuable insights about the truth of your brand.
6. Keep in touch with technology:
   Like it or not, technology is shaping our lives, our brands and our businesses. For some, tracking technology developments is fun, for others it can be an intimidating and unwelcome task. Whichever group you fall into, it is essential to understand how technology is shaping your market - so take time to understand the trends. For example, do you know about "direct to desktop" publishing, Web browsing via cellular phone or PDA, or the impact that high definition television may have on your customers or prospects in the future?
7. Use formal research to gain insight into your brand:
   Quantitative research, such as that compiled from a telephone survey and mailed questionnaires, can provide you with the numbers to help make decisions. Qualitative research, such as focus groups, one-on-one interviews and 360° reviews, can get you in touch with the feelings, emotions and more intricate thought processes of your market.

Development and the maintenance of a brand is an ongoing process. By accurately monitoring your brand relative to your competition and your overall business you can make the adjustments to keep your brand strong.

Building a winning brand is all about being the best you can be, exceeding customer expectations and doing it consistently.

Special thanks to John Torella of the J.C.Williams Group for his pioneering work in the art of retail branding.

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