No matter what side of the business you're on, there's one term that brand owners and people working in brand marketing always refer to: brand perception. It's a phrase used in presentations, briefs, emails, blogs - every medium professionals can communicate through. But have you ever thought about what exactly this means?
Perceiving a brand is not just about perceiving the colors of that brand, seeing its logo or reading its slogan, it is about connecting with everything that makes up the brand.
What are the components that make up brand perception?
- A consistently designed brand identity
- Having well-targeted and actionable brand values
- An optimized and continuously improving customer experience aiming for excellence
- Strong reputation management and "listening" to what consumers are saying about the brand
- Management of well-targeted advertisements and a comprehensive marketing communication strategy
- Maintaining the quality of products and improving the functionality of services offered
What is brand perception and how do brands improve their own perception?
Before we try to briefly understand what brand perception is, it would be better to start by understanding what the concept of perception itself is.
The concept of perception can be defined as interpreting physical and emotional stimuli from the environment through our senses and ultimately, it provides the formation of a judgment based on experiences and expectations.
Brand perception, on the other hand, refers to what the people who make up the target audience of a brand think about the brand and how they feel and react when they encounter sensory inputs related to the brand.
Improving this perception positively from the brand's standpoint primarily happens by conducting marketing activities wherever consumers are present. The process that creates these activities is managed by using all online and offline channels effectively.
This perception concept that I mentioned does not progress on a plane that focuses only on the brand's self-promotion. The best result that can be obtained is to process a multidimensional and multifaceted equation that includes using various parameters together in a balanced way.
The main criteria needed for a brand to be perceived "positively" by its target audience include ensuring that the messages the brand wants to give resonate with the consumer, fulfilling the promises made, maintaining originality and transparency, observing ethical values and developing meaningful interactions with customers.
Why is investment important for developing brand perception?
To solve the equation, let’s start by understanding what the problem is: When your customers perceive good things about your brand, they trust the brand more, are more loyal to products and services, and even recommend the brand to others, as a secondary benefit.
Investing in brand perception is directly linked to investing in customer loyalty, and loyalty not only strengthens your presence in the market, but also increases sales.
When I talk about perceiving a brand, I emphasize that the story is much more than just knowing the brand's name, being familiar with its slogan or following its products in some way. That's not all, understanding the brand's values, how it looks at the world, its tone of voice, its perspective on events, the promises it makes and the experiences it offers are also included in brand perception.
The actions carried out by the brand may be in line with the values customers have, or they may seem completely against them. Turning a negative situation into a positive one and strengthening the positive situation are important parts of the efforts to improve brand perception.
Consumers deal with the outward side of a brand, hear the brand from the outside and fill in the gaps in their own minds to create their own unique view. Managing brand perception is therefore a process that requires attention to every detail and requires a lot of attention.
If you aim to establish permanent and valuable communication with the people who make up your target audience as a brand, one of the most important things you need to do is to observe your brand perception, monitor its progress and make efforts and investments to continuously improve it.
