Insight and opinion
Brand ROI: Why is it hard to determine?
Measuring ROI is our way of proving whether marketing efforts have brought in results. However, tracing this back to the impact on brand equity isn’t always that straightforward.
While it seems obvious, nobody will buy from a business if they don’t know it exists. You could have the best solution, a life changing product or a seamless customer experience but it means nothing if there is no awareness in the first place.
The solution usually defaults to ‘let’s improve Google rankings or exhaust our budgets on AdWords’. Whilst these are good tactics there is more to brand awareness than being everywhere at once. For a brand to set itself apart, they need to be visually inspiring, tell great stories through campaigns, enforce a brand purpose to drive position and build brand equity in competitive markets.
The reason we struggle to account for the specific brand ROI is because in isolation it is not the element that pushes people to convert. It is the tipping point that assists all other lead generation campaigns and the one consistent element which unites our perceptions and judgements.
When people are positively aware of your brand, it gives all your other marketing elements a kick in the right direction. We unwittingly trust in the brands we recognise and associate with, which encourages our actions to click ads, open websites and engage in brand activity. Association is the catalyst to brand engagement which then leads to qualified conversion. This is where the ROI is determined.