We thought we would answer a few of the basic questions around the reports, what are they, why we did them and why we think they're useful.
What is a Clarity Report?
Simply put, it’s a report that tracks if your brand performs well by measuring the quality of the brand assets you have, how you’re distributing them and if customers then recognise you when they need you. The better you do in the first two areas, the more likely you’ll score higher in the last area.
Why are you doing this?
It’s been a bit of a mantra for many years here at Good. If you communicate coherently and consistently with your customers, you’ll outperform your competitors. The issue we were having was pulling all that data together in a coherent way that could give you actionable insight into improving your brand. Brand tracking is beneficial but not quick enough to take a snapshot on; social media tools tended to measure sentiment, which is helpful but only one point of view. And everything else felt too siloed; you couldn’t easily or quickly take the big data and make it small enough to be actionable.
What are you measuring?
It depends on the category, but we’re looking at measuring at least fifty data points across seven categories. These categories are:
Brand Assets
We’re looking at how consistent the brand is across channels, if the assets are distinctive, if the brand achieves a certain level of standout. We’re also looking to make sure that the brand architecture makes sense. Does the brand remove or add friction to the customer process?
Language
Sure, language is a brand asset, but another mantra here at Good is that a brand starts with language. It humanises the brand and sets the tone of all interactions. We feel it needs to be pulled out and measured separately. We’re looking to see if the brand has a clear tone of voice and is consistent across and throughout all channels.
Website
For each category, we’ll look to review what the hygiene factors are for the category. Is it a specific account login function, is it a general buyer guide? How useful are you in the customer journey? We measure the website's effectiveness, making sure it offers a solid experience for the customer, rooted back to its brand.
Mobile
We pulled mobile into a separate category from the website. Too often, we’ve seen sites signed off from the 75” TV in the boardroom with mobile taking second place as it’s “a wee bit boring”. Mobile is where your customers live. We’ve measured the brand experience and the level of mobile optimisation done on the site.
Social
Social media: the land of the big numbers. Big follower numbers. Big likes. Big wows? We want to see if a social media account set up as a brand experience outperforms the feeling of a more generic account.
Digital Marketing
Good assets, good language, great site. But people have to know that you exist for them to buy from you. What are you putting behind the brand to get it out there?
Share of Search
Where the rubber hits the road. A lot has been talked about Share of Search and its usefulness in the age of modern marketing. We like it as a metric. If you’re doing well with the other categories, then you’ll want customers to find you. Share of Search helps you see if the brand work you’re doing is paying off.
Who are these Clarity Reports for?
Firstly, they’re for us. They satisfy a curiosity we have about particular sectors. Out of that, though, they’re intended as a tool for marketing departments in helping guide activity that can help improve their brand and, in turn, get more sales. It’s also an excellent tool for a marketing department’s stakeholders. Rather than bombard people with lots of stats and data and explanations, the Clarity Report is a useful, simple to understand snapshot to measure the progress of your brand building and how you measure up against your competition.
What makes the Clarity Report useful?
It provides a benchmark for your brand against your competition. From there you can understand where you are performing well and, more importantly, what areas of your brand activity you need to review. All this by pulling data together from over fifty data points, backed up by over 15 years of the global brand expertise that we have here at Good.
What Clarity Reports are available?
So far we’ve got a report on the White Goods sector and looking to release three more based on Smart Home technology companies, Facility Management and Financial Institutions. Sign up to the email list at the bottom of the Clarity Reports page and we’ll notify you when they’re released.
Hold on! Aren’t some of the companies in the report your clients?
Yes, well spotted. And we’re delighted to work with them on their brand work. But the data don’t lie. If they aren’t spending on digital marketing, that’ll pick it up. If the sentiment analysis on the language category isn’t ranking highly, that’ll show through. Honesty is one of our values and we’re honest with ourselves and our clients if the brand work isn’t executed well.
These reports look interesting but there isn’t one in my category. Can you add one for me, please?
There are two ways that we can add a category for you. The first is that you can let us know and we’ll see if we get round to it. We plan to launch a report once a month. Secondly, you can commission a report for your category. That commissioned report adds a lot more detail into the mix that goes behind the numbers and offers more insight. If you'd like a chat about the options of commissioning a report, drop us a line.
We recorded a podcast that goes into the reports in a little more detail...
We hope that you find the Clarity Reports useful. Take a look at our current reports and please, let us know what you think by sending us your thoughts.