Brand Perception Surveys - 7 questions to ask + 2 examples

Let's start with what these surveys do:

What Is a Brand Perception Survey?

Brand perception is about how your brand is perceived and evaluated by your customers (everyone, actually) when they see or hear about it—regardless of how you want to be viewed in the minds of customers.

For each individual, this perception can be supported for different reasons. For example,  customer perception can be formed due to:

• the previous customer experience a customer had with your brand,
• word-of-mouth marketing: your brand's reputation among your target audience,
• the underlying feelings a consumer associates with your brand.

You can conduct this type of brand survey to determine the strength of your brand image in your target audience, and it can provide you with valuable insights, just like any other market research.

Branding was a newly discovered concept in the 1500s; brand image and brand awareness weren't as crucial as they are today until David ‎Aaker, a brand strategist, coined the term "brand perception" in his book in 1991.

As the brand perception study emerged, marketers understood that they could benefit from this concept in their marketing strategies and utilize the findings in relevant marketing campaigns.

That's how brand perception surveys became a powerful tool in supporting marketing efforts.

What insights do brand perception surveys provide?

Brand perception surveys illustrate what your customers think and feel about your product or service; thus, these surveys shed light on:

1. Brand quality and reliability

The first insight that brand perception surveys provide you with is related to your product or service since these surveys enable you to track your brand image.

Hearing stories about each unique customer experience will help you see your brand from your customers' point of view and grasp why they perceive it in a specific way.

Ultimately, the type of questions present in this survey will count as the first step you take toward discovering opportunities to enhance your brand, learn more about customer expectations, and gain a better understanding of your brand’s image.

2. Brand messaging

The second insight you gain from brand perception surveys verifies whether your brand messaging got across the right way.

A successful survey's data would display how your customers perceive your brand, how your brand makes them feel, and how they describe it to others.

Upon acquiring this data, you might come across an unexpected result from a specific percentage of customers (if they don't answer a set of questions the way you expect them to).

Analyzing the answers to these brand survey questions and segmenting them will help you determine the gap between your actual product quality and your assumed product quality.

Not only does it depend on the customer journey, but brand perception also changes due to positive and negative experiences, the quality of customer service, and even your current customer base (which might be far from ideal).

In other words, this insight will enable you to minimize the gap between your current and your intended messaging.

3. Brand advertising campaigns

Here comes your third type of insight: the impact of marketing.

Your marketing team will investigate what your consumers associate your product and service with, encountering obstacles and solutions along the way.

For example, you'll get to discover how your customers feel and how much they trust your brand and gather feedback regarding the impact of your marketing efforts.

Seeing if your campaigns work the way you mold will help you decide whether to:

• continue your current marketing messaging,
• plan a new marketing strategy,
• or take a different road based on the ideas you get from your customers.

Keep in mind that it's in your hands to change your overall brand perception with your future marketing campaigns.

7 Brand Perception Survey Questions

It's time to introduce you to the questions of this survey, here comes the question number one:

1) How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend or colleague?

At first glance, this might seem like a brand loyalty survey, but the first thing that needs to be assessed is how likely customers are to recommend your brand.

This 1-10 scale question is designed to help you determine whether your customers are happy enough to promote your product and become brand advocates.

This is always a good practice as you can ask them about the reason why - if they aren't likely to promote your product.

2) How did you first learn about our brand?

The question of brand awareness provides valuable insight into channels that are the right fit for you.

These channels can vary from word-of-mouth marketing to social media channels.

You can utilize the information you get from this question to revise your marketing strategies, understanding how some channels benefit your business more while some stay in the shade.

PS: It also gives you a solid idea of the channels that you should dote on more 😉

3) Is there anything else you'd like to share about our brand mention?

‎This one is a follow-up question for you to get a more detailed explanation regarding the question prior.

Plus, this open-ended question allows you to acquire qualitative data by hearing of:

• personal stories of customers,
• customers' ideas and suggestions,
• customer concerns,
• and customer service experiences.

4) How much do you trust our brand?

Combining quality and reliability, this question deals with how much your customers believe in your brand.

The rating might depend on several factors, from brand affinity to brand offers, but it displays your brand strengths and weaknesses based on the feedback you gather.

By segmenting the customers who rated low, you can send them a follow-up email asking them to explain why they did so instead of making the survey longer.

This can help you pinpoint the key areas that your brand needs to improve and enhance your overall brand value.

5) How would you describe our brand?

Here comes the question that you can use for brand association.

You have the chance to limit the answers to three words, which is the general approach, but you also can allow them unlimited options.

Moving on, you can easily ‎acquire the attributes your audience matches your brand when they think of you.

These adjectives will come in handy when you're testing whether your attributes align with your brand messaging, as you will have the data to develop it.

6) Has the perception of our brand changed since you first heard about us?

This thumbs-up/down question is here to learn more about whether your users' perceptions have changed ever since they heard of your brand and started using your products.‎

7) Could you tell us why?

‎This follow-up question requires your users to provide more details regarding the change in their perception, whether good or bad.

2 Examples of Perfect Brand Perception Surveys

1- Groove

In this example, Groove keeps ‎it short and simple.

It starts by asking how likely your customers are to promote your brand without any incentive.

The answers you collect will show your brand's possibility of organic growth based on the satisfaction of your current customers.

Then, the open-ended question asks why you gave that score.

By learning the reason, you can improve the weaknesses your customers state about your product and ensure long-term success.‎

2- Frase

‎Frase starts the survey by asking customers to rate their willingness to recommend your product.

By measuring how likely customers are to become brand advocates, you can analyze if your brand message matches your customers' ratings.

After the rating process, Frase will send an email to explain the reason behind your choice.

For example, if you give a low score, a representative may ask you to hop on a call to learn how they can improve.

To sum up...

Brand perception surveys aim to understand how your customers perceive your brand.

With these surveys, you can check whether your messaging matches your customers' brand image and refine your brand in the areas that need improvement.

Thanks to these surveys, you'll get more insights on your:

• brand quality and reliability,
• brand messaging,
• and the performance of your advertisements.

You can keep this survey short, like the examples I provided above, or make it lengthy with the 7 questions I introduced to get more details—it depends on your purpose, channel, and audience.