If you’re looking to implement a new program or fine-tune your existing brand measurement, we have both bad news and good news for you. The bad news is that, compared with most financial, transactional, and operational metrics, brand is notoriously difficult to pin down and hence eludes easy measurement. The good news is that because of the lack of standardization, many measurement providers have crafted unique and creative analytical frameworks to help companies measure and manage brands.

If you’re looking for some help with brand measurement, we’ve short-listed the best measurement providers in our new report for Forrester clients, The Brand Measurement Consulting Services Landscape, Q4 2024. Here are some things to keep in mind as you embark on that journey.

Know your mind.

When you are ready to start, ask yourself two questions: 1) What do you want to get out of brand measurement and 2) what are you willing to put into it? For example, if you just want to track the standard brand purchase funnel with a modest budget, then the solution you seek is likely different from that of a company looking to reset its brand strategy because it is rapidly losing relevance and share in its category. Clear expectations about your objectives and a realistic knowledge of your resource constraints will help sharpen your search for a partner.

Do your homework.

Your measurement partner likely has vast experience in several categories working for many brands. But let’s be very clear — no one knows your business like you do. If you’re in the market for a provider (with a formal RFP or general inquiry), go in with a fairly detailed spec of what you want done. This could include a well-defined understanding of audiences, geographies, brand and product portfolios, competitive and North Star brands you want to test, and hypotheses about key strategic initiatives and growth plans. A good partner will help you shape and refine this thinking, but diligent homework on your part will make the final result that much better.

Kick the tires.

When you pick a partner, you make a serious commitment; you want to go on a few dates before you tie the knot. Have conversations not just with account managers but with the subject-matter experts who will lead your work to gauge your comfort level with their expertise. Let them react to your homework to see if they can push your thinking. Give them what you consider to be the hardest challenge in measuring your brand (maybe low awareness, obscure segments, or confusing branding) and see how they propose to address it. Ask for specific output from other client engagements (anonymized is OK) that they expect to replicate for yours. Thoroughly test out dashboards and tools rather than passively demo them.

Need help putting all this together? Please talk to your account team about my workshop on brand measurement that covers understanding what to measure, how, and who to do it with.

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