How Do You Measure Brand Strength?

When it comes to measuring brand strength, marketers are at a bit of a disadvantage.

Unlike other higher education divisions, marketing does not have a primary, agreed-upon metric for brand strength. Whereas advancement has fundraising totals, student success has retention rate, and admissions has new student enrollment, marketing has . . . ? Awareness?…Net Promoter Score?…Overall Opinion?

This has not stopped people from trying. As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and there’s not an institution of higher education that isn’t trying to manage its brand. This has led to many different approaches to measuring brand strength.

Complicating matters is that “success” in managing a brand varies from one instution to the next and even from one year to the next. For some, the primary goal is wider awareness; for others, it’s stronger perception. For still others, when marketers ask if the goal is broader awareness or stronger perception, they’re told “yes.”

I won’t bury the lede: I don’t have a perfect solution to measuring brand strength. But in the absence of a perfect solution, we can try to get closer to it.

In that spirit, I set out to create a framework for measuring an institution’s brand strength. After re-reviewing our client work and seeing how others have approached this question, I collected enough inputs so that the structure evaluates a brand from multiple angles without going off the deep end.

I compiled what I found into two frameworks. (available in Excel here)

The first is a more traditional brand health tracker, the kind that might be found across other industries. I’ve adapted it for higher education to focus on the metrics that best represent the perceived strength of the brand, both from those within the college community and those outside of it. This first framework relies entirely on primary data - i.e., going out to the audience and collecting responses for these measures.

Framework 1: Brand Health Tracker

The second is a more expansive marketing and brand strength framework that relies on a mix of primary and secondary (or observed) data. By including a mix of traditional brand measures, tactical marketing inputs, and enrollment- and media-related metrics, we develop a more fulsome measure of not just how people perceive the brand, but also of what the strength of the brand can do for the institution.

As a brand gets stronger, we may logically expect to see its effects play out in other areas. Brand strength, for instance, is likely reflected in an institution’s draw rate (yield rate / acceptance rate). By the same logic, a strengthening brand may earn more media mentions or mentions in publications with a higher advertising value equivalency.

Framework 2: Expansive Brand Strength Framework

While this structure may not fit every institution’s needs perfectly, the value of any framework like this lies in providing structure. In the vast landscape of data and information we collect, having a structured approach helps us make sense of it all, focus on the most essential aspects, and track our results over time. It offers a systematic way to understand and enhance a brand's impact, ensuring that efforts are both effective and measurable.

Finally, one of my goals in sharing this is to hear your thoughts and suggestions. How would you edit this framework? What elements would you add or remove for a better overall measure of brand strength? If appropriate, I’ll collate feedback and share a revised version with those who are interested.

As always, thank you for reading! This newsletter deviated from our norm in format and purpose. I hope you found it helpful and I look forward to your insights in shaping a better framework for measuring brand strength.