ROI of Brand Monitoring :Keeping Tabs on Your Brand Pays Off Big Time
Have you ever heard someone say something not-so-nice about your favorite restaurant, clothing store, or other business you really like?.How do you measure the ROI of Brand Monitoring.Maybe they complained about poor service or left a negative review online after a bad experience.
If so, you probably felt a little defensive, right? After all, when a brand you care about gets criticized unfairly, it doesn’t feel good!
Well, imagine how business owners and companies must feel when that happens to their brand that they’ve worked so hard to build. Negative comments and posts about your business can quickly spread online if you’re not paying attention.
That’s why monitoring your brand’s reputation online is so important these days. By keeping constant tabs on what people are saying, businesses can protect their brand while also opening up lots of opportunities to make more money.
In this post, we’ll look at brand monitoring – what it means, why it’s valuable, and how it leads to higher profits and returns for smart companies. You’ll see examples proving just how much of a difference this simple strategy can make.
What is Brand Monitoring?
Brand monitoring refers to the process of tracking online conversations, posts, and any mention of your company’s name, products, services, and other brand elements across the internet.
Lots of different things get monitored, such as:
– Reviews about your business on sites like Google, Yelp, TrustPilot, etc.
– Social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms
– Online forums and discussion boards where people talk about your industry
– Video sites like YouTube where customers could upload experiences
– News articles, blog posts, or any other media mentions of your brand
Using special tools and software, brand monitoring allows you to find and see everything being said about your business, both positive and negative. That way you can respond accordingly.
Why Does Brand Monitoring Matter?
You might be wondering – so what’s the big deal? Why should companies go through all the trouble of monitoring every little mention of their brand across the entire internet?
Well, the reality is that in our hyper-connected digital age, online conversations and content have a massive impact on public perception of brands. And public perception of your brand directly affects your ability to attract customers and make sales.
Here are a few key reasons why:
It Protects Your Reputation
Let’s say an angry customer left a bunch of harsh negative reviews about your business after having a bad experience. If you’re not monitoring review sites, you may never see those harmful posts damaging your reputation. Monitoring allows you to get ahead of such situations.
It Generates New Sales Opportunities
On the flip side, monitoring also allows you to identify positive brand mentions and turn that into revenue. If someone raves about your product in a social post, you can reach out and potentially convert them into a customer!
It Gathers Valuable Customer Feedback
Sometimes, online conversations provide insightful feedback about what customers love or hate about your products and brand experience. This intel is invaluable for improving your offerings and driving more sales as a result.
It Identifies Influencer Marketing Chances
Many times, brand monitoring efforts will surface posts from influential bloggers, reviewers or industry tastemakers talking about your category. You can then build relationships with those influencers for marketing partnerships.
As you can see, monitoring your brand’s online presence allows you to capitalize on opportunities while putting out fires before they get out of control. Those benefits lead to increased revenue and ROI.
Real Examples of Brand Monitoring Wins
While brand monitoring may seem simple on the surface, consistently doing it well creates tremendous value for companies and exceptional returns on their investment. Let’s look at some inspiring case studies:
CrossFit Games: Locking Down a Global Event
For the CrossFit Games, their annual major event is basically their entire brand. Miss a beat in promoting and protecting the CrossFit Games, and there are major ramifications for sponsors, attendance, and revenue.
For the 2013 Games, CrossFit used advanced brand monitoring software to track over 200,000 mentions across platforms during the competition. This allowed the brand to:
– Engage with fans sharing exciting CrossFit Games moments
– Get ahead of and respond to any issues regarding event logistics
– Identify influencers and fans share experiences and drive further promotion
Thanks to their proactive brand monitoring, the 2013 CrossFit Games were a massive success, shattering all previous records. The event generated over $8 million in revenue, a 67% increase over the prior year!
KOA Camping Campgrounds: Better Customer Service and Reviews
For campgrounds like KOA, responding quickly to camper concerns is crucial for avoiding negative reviews that drive away future customers. That’s why they implemented comprehensive brand monitoring.
By tracking online mentions and reviews across platforms, KOA could pinpoint any issues and make things right before problems escalated. This let them get ahead of negative reviews while encouraging happy campers to leave positive reviews.
Within two years, KOA’s overall review score soared to 4.6/5 stars with almost 20,000 new positive reviews from customers whose concerns were promptly resolved thanks to brand monitoring.
Identifying those delighted customers also opened the door to generating over $2 million in new sales by converting them into KOA’s special VIP camper loyalty program.
The Success of Video Game Launches
In the video game industry, the success and reputation of your game titles are everything. So during major new game launches, publishers go into overdrive monitoring online buzz, reviews, and engagement to safeguard their sales.
By carefully tracking brand mentions and fan discussions, game makers can proactively address issues or clear up misinformation that arises. They can also leverage positive word-of-mouth to power even bigger success.
For example, BioWare’s brand monitoring on the Mass Effect 3 game launch resulted in sales 40% higher than projected. Meanwhile, Assassin’s Creed III became a top-selling game after proactive response to online concerns.
How to Calculate the ROI of Brand Monitoring
Sure, brand monitoring sounds valuable for protecting your reputation and identifying opportunities. But how do you actually determine whether the effort is actually worth the investment from a dollars-and-cents perspective?
While the financial impact of brand monitoring is sometimes tough to perfectly quantify, there are several metrics and techniques professionals use to estimate the ROI:
Revenue Growth Analysis:
Perhaps the most direct means is to look at the increase in revenue attributed to sales opportunities identified through brand monitoring, compared to the costs.
For example, if your brand monitoring efforts generated $750,000 in new sales from converting fans and influencers, and cost $150,000, then your rough ROI is (($750,000 – $150,000) / $150,000) = 400% return.
Customer Acquisition Costs & Lifetime Value:
Estimate the cost of acquiring new customers through conventional means versus reputational monitoring. Also consider improved customer lifetime values when experience issues get promptly resolved.
Review Scoring Impact:
Many studies correlate increases in review scoring to uplifts in revenue. By improving your review scores through monitoring, you can estimate potential revenue gains.
Brand Equity and Market Share:
While more subjective, you can project how protecting and growing your brand equity helps gain market share and market growth versus competitors not monitoring.
High-Risk Incident Prevention:
Calculate the revenue hit your business would suffer from an unaddressed reputation crisis, and the monitoring costs to prevent/minimize that fallout.
No matter which approach you use, typically the ROI from brand monitoring is significant when you consider factors like:
– Boosting positive reviews, references and word-of-mouth
– Crisis prevention and protecting your brand from reputation threats
– Improving customer experience and retention rates
– Generating new leads from identifying sales opportunities
With so many benefits occurring across different parts of a business, the compounding value is greater than the sum of its parts. Companies consistently find that brand monitoring pays for itself many times over.
Start Monitoring Your Brand Today
In today’s hyper-connected world, your brand is constantly being discussed, analyzed, and scrutinized across the entire internet. What began as a few online reviews has evolved into a nonstop stream of social media posts, conversations, videos, media coverage, and more.
Keeping tabs on that never-ending online chatter is absolutely crucial for protecting your reputation, identifying sales opportunities, and maximizing your revenue potential.
Fortunately, as long as you make brand monitoring a priority, the returns you’ll reap are substantial:
– Boosting reviews and positive word-of-mouth
– Retaining more customers through responsive service
– Generating new leads and converting fans into buyers
– Getting ahead of potential crises and harmful information
– Building stronger brand equity in your market
The ROI from investing into comprehensive brand monitoring strategies consistently ends up paying for itself many times over through increased sales, lower costs, and greater revenue-generating opportunities.
So if you’re a business owner or marketer, don’t let your brand’s online presence go unchecked and risk missing out on all that value. Start using brand monitoring to take control of your internet airwaves and reputation.
Your bottom line will thank you for being so vigilant and proactive! Let me know if you have any other questions.