Understructure Of Good Brand Strategies: The Brand Questionnaire

Marketers are privy to how companies spend so many resources on branding. A good brand can only sustain itself over time if it has audience support. Becoming a fan favorite means brands must be able to set themselves apart. To get this kind of attention, companies must define their purpose and have a unique brand identity.

But what is a brand identity?
Simply put, it is everything that helps a brand distinguish itself from others like it.

A brand identity is a collection of things. In terms of visuals — the logo, colors, typography, Along with the brand personality, values, tone, relationship with customers, etc., help make the identity.

Clients can approach you for creating or revamping their brand identity. You can do the best research and create the most brilliant strategies. But there can be a disconnect between how the brand projects itself and how the audience perceives it. This is where the Brand Identity Questionnaire comes into play.

It helps in bridging that disconnect by becoming the foundation of your brand strategy.

It’s a necessary tool to create, curate, and customize the brand identity. A good questionnaire will help you- the marketer- understand the brand in their own words. It allows clients to think about their identity and what they stand for. The answers help the marketer translate those characteristics across branding. Recognition of a given company and its position in the market is determined by uniform brand identity and thoughtful marketing.

The Brand Identity Questionnaire - What Is It?

A Brand Identity Questionnaire is one of the most effective tools used to identify the needs and expectations of a client. It reveals necessary information about the company.
Marketing experts can use this information to understand the client’s needs and brainstorm ideas on how to best represent the brand. A defined brand identity helps create effective marketing, branding, and communication strategies.

The first step to creating a unique identity is understanding how the brands view themselves. The branding questionnaire aids this. It should be open-ended and detailed. It is often divided into subsections to better understand the requirements of the clients. This information provides a strong foundation, as it comes directly from the source.

Why is a well-structured brand identity questionnaire necessary?

A good brand questionnaire helps clear out gaps and shortcomings. The questionnaire kicks off the creative planning stage and helps establish the consistency of brand identity from the get-go.

When clients start the branding process, their concerns are- pulling consumer attention and dealing with recurring issues. A good questionnaire will allow the marketer to iron out these details.

A brand identity questionnaire is a deceptively simple tool. If used properly, it can yield positive long-term results. When a client properly answers the questions, they can control the narrative around their brand. In a way, they are setting themselves up for success. By providing you with the maximum information, they allow the best strategies to be developed. All those features add up to the recognizability and popularity of the brand.

A good questionnaire can provide the following advantages:

• It aids in the development of an efficient marketing strategy.
• The promotional activities are tailor-made to the client’s needs.
• Uniform branding provides a competitive edge.
• The company ideology becomes easy to understand.
• A well-defined customer base is created.
• Helps in the development of effective marketing tools.

The questionnaire becomes the stepping stone for understanding the brand. It can help bridge the gap that arises when marketers study the brand, and how the brand studies itself.

The questionnaire becomes the stepping stone for understanding the brand. It can help bridge the gap that arises when marketers study the brand, and how the brand studies itself.

Elements To Focus On

A good questionnaire will ask for the needful. But when there are so many things to figure out, what will be the right questions? Essentially, the questionnaire should paint a complete overview of the company, and what it’s looking for.

• The brand experience: A brand is known by its name. But what sells it is the stories and narratives it builds. Recognizing what the brand offers and how it benefits the customers becomes very necessary. Including this in the questionnaire allows the company to provide relevant information about its offerings.

Simple open-ended questions suffice, like ‘what is the name of your product?’ ‘what does your brand/ product/ company do?’ ‘what services do you offer?’ etc.

• The personality of the brand: The best brands always find ways to make their personalities shine through. Does the brand want to be seen as youthful and fun or elegant and classy? The client may have different ideas on how they want to be seen by the audience. Questions about the brand personality help in brand positioning. It can also provide insight into areas that require improvement.
  The personality includes questions about vision- mission, positioning statement, etc.

Asking questions like ‘list 5 words that represent your brand?’, ‘ what are the 3 messages your brand needs to communicate, and ‘what characteristics does your brand have?’ can get you a rough idea about the clients.
But there is no ban on making the questions fun. Asking the company to define the brands in terms of ‘what kind of animal they would be?’, ‘where they would hang out?’, and ‘who they will be friends with?’ — can be fun ways to get to know the brands.

• The target audience: Does the brand recognize its target audience? If not, what kind of audience does it want to attract? Does it have a particular demographic in mind? Is its identity not matching the audience it caters to? Questions about the target audience clarify the aspirations of the client.

The more open-ended the questions, the more details you can expect. Queries can range from ideal demographic, target locations, the average composition of TA, and channels of interaction to consumer complaints. Through the answer, you can find out how well the client knows its TA.

• The unique factor: The only way that brands become successful is if it manages to create a distinct identity. A client would want to highlight their brand’s unique features. Sometimes, despite the brand being easy to distinguish, it does not find mass appeal. The questionnaire makes it easy to understand how the client wants their brand to be known. The strategies thus formed can play to the strengths.

There could be direct and indirect questions- like ‘what is your brand’s value proposition?’, ‘what sets you apart?’ etc. Not only will this help identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) but also give direction to the strategy.

• The competition: The hare lost the race because it underestimated its competition. A good player knows who they are up against. If the client fails to recognize their competition they are bound to fall behind. Through the questionnaire, clients can assess the competition for themselves.
  This section can also serve as a reference point. There are things about the competitors that the client would like to imbibe in their products.
  Knowing how well aware the client is about both strengths and failings of competition can be very useful for the strategy.

A good Brand Questionnaire will instigate the brand to consider many situations that would ask for solutions that lie outside of the box and lead to greater flexibility for the brand to operate freely. It is key to getting crucial insights into how a brand can become more inviting. Without the aid of a questionnaire during the conceptual planning stage, the marketers can miss out on very important details.

A successful brand strategy will adhere to the holistic identity of the brand. Brand Questionnaires give the brand an incredible edge in coming up with a nuanced brand identity. It separates an average, inconsistent, and superfluous brand identity from a unique, consistent, and reliable one.

That strategy thus formed, understands both the brand and its customers, and creates a strong bridge between them for meaningful and positive interaction.

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