9 Key Brand Research Questions To Ask
top of page
  • Writer's pictureAnpar Research
    • Jan 16, 2021
    • 6 min read

9 Key Brand Research Questions To Ask

Updated: Apr 5


9 Brand Research Key Questions To Ask

There are 9 key brand research questions to ask that are vitally important to keep track whether the brand is seen in a positive light in the market. This is crucial for businesses or websites in ensuring they have a good brand name as it encapsulates the personality, values, goals and image that make the brand recognisable to the public.


In this post we will explore these key 9 brand research questions and the reasons why they should be used, which fall within the 5 levels of the brand research funnel below:


[Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning we get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through these links at no additional cost to you.]


The table above shows the 9 key brand research questions to ask respondents.


The top 9 brand research questions shown above fit within the brand research funnel to help measure different key metrics. The brand research funnel gives you an instant snapshot of conversion from awareness to users or advocates of the brand. Below is an explanation of how these 9 questions fit within the 5 levels of the brand research funnel and their importance in brand research.


Brand research funnel covering brand awareness at the top, familiarity, consideration, usage and advocacy at the bottom
Brand research funnel

1. Brand awareness


There are 3 types of brand awareness questions below that cover spontaneous and prompted mentions to make up total awareness amongst your audience of brands within a category.


1: Top of mind awareness

This helps to gage which brands in a particular category that the target audience are aware of spontaneously. In this case the first brand that comes to mind for that market or sector. This is important to see how your brand does when people are unprompted and is an important part of brand recall.


EXAMPLE

Q. Please think about online banks that provide everyday financial services such as current accounts, savings accounts, mortgages and loans. Which online bank comes to mind first?


2: Total spontaneous awareness

This measure’s all the spontaneous brand mentions including the first top of mind mention as well. As mentioned above this is a good judge of success for a brand to see how they stand out within their category.


EXAMPLE

Q. Which other comparison sites are you aware of?


3: Prompted awareness

This is when a brand list is either read out or listed in a survey for participants to select brands, they are aware of that they have not already mentioned in the spontaneous awareness questions.


EXAMPLE

Q. You may have mentioned several of these already, but please indicate which of the following computer brands you know, even if it is only the name.


2. Familiarity


The familiarity question helps to see how good is the awareness of brands of those participants who answered they know the brand from it being merely a label they heard of to something that is more meaningful and part of their consideration set for purchase.


EXAMPLE

Q. How familiar are you with each of these brands as mobile phone providers?

Brand familiarity scale as part of the key questions to ask for brand research


3. Consideration


It’s important to be in the consideration set of 3 or 4 brands in members of the target audience who are serious about buying that product or service type. It often takes that number of brands for many purchase decisions. This question will allow you to understand if your brand is part of that consideration set from those participants aware of the brand.


EXAMPLE

Q. Which brands would you consider when buying a large household appliance?


It’s also interesting to see which is the most preferred by the target audience even if they have not purchased the product or service before.


EXAMPLE

Q. Which of these BRANDS do you most prefer?


4. Usage


When asking participants about usage of brands it’s best to keep it within a timeframe such as past month, 3 months, 6 months or in the past year. The usage question will allow you to understand how brands compare in the market and the relative market share. It’s a very useful measure to hold to supplement the existing sales data you have.




EXAMPLE

Q. Thinking about your own home, which of the following brands do you currently have/use in your household? This could be for any type of domestic appliance?


5. Advocacy


Either overall customer satisfaction or likelihood to recommend questions (NPS) on a scale of 0 to 10 will help you to understand how well your brand is delivering on your promises. Those that give a score of 9 or 10 are likely to be advocates of the brand in raising awareness or to consider purchasing in the future. So, this ties in with the other measures in the funnel.

EXAMPLE

LIKELIHOOD TO RECOMMEND

Q. On a scale of 0 to 10 with 0 being not at all to 10 being extremely likely, how likely are you to recommend BRAND X OR WEBSITE to friends or family?

Liklihood to recommend scale as part of the key questions to ask for brand research

OVERALL SATISFACTION

Q. Thinking about your overall experiences with BRAND X in the last 3 months, on a scale of 0 to 10 with 0 being not at all satisfied to 10 being extremely satisfied, how satisfied are you with BRAND X?

Overall satisfaction scale as part of the key questions to ask for brand research


Other brand research question topics to include


There are many other topics that can be covered in brand research and these include:


Channel of purchase

You can draw on important intelligence of the channel strategies of your competitors from where they bought the brand from and the brands used.

Behaviour in making the purchase decision

Find out what people were thinking in the lead up of the purchase, so did they seek advice from others, search for information online or looked at products instore. These are vital insights to gain an understanding of where your brand should be most noticeable in order to positively influence the purchase.


Switching patterns

This can serve as an early warning system of likely defection of customers when monitoring this on a regular basis. Possible questions for this would be around - do they intend on staying loyal to the brand? Or whether they are likely to change their purchase behaviour?



Profiling the audience

To get the latest understanding of their target audience many profiling questions are asked around demographics, attitudes and behaviour and is often linked to the segmentation profiles of a business.


Advertising awareness

So long as the sponsor of the research is not disclosed, you can ask questions around what advertising they remember seeing for a particular category? Do they remember the message of the ad? What brand was is it for? What was the source of the advertising? These advertising research questions help to establish how effective any recent brand advertising campaigns were.


Brand image

Brand image otherwise known as Brand association is normally asked towards the latter part of the survey to help ascertain whether the brand’s values are being positively associated with it or not. This is often a list of brand attribute statements on a 5-point agreement scale. It’s best a have a maximum of 10 statements to help avoid respondent fatigue.


Conclusion


Brand research helps to refine marketing strategies whether you’re at the start of your brand’s journey or in the middle to ensure the brand’s personality is positively conveyed and instantly recognisable amongst your target audience. It’s best to use brand research to monitor your brand’s progress over time to ensure you can efficiently and strategically move against your competitors and foresee any possible market trends by conducting brand analysis from the data that was gathered.


RELATED POSTS BELOW ABOUT BRANDING AND ONLINE SURVEYS























Weekly Habit Tracker Banner Ad 400x600 1.jpg
bottom of page