Your Brand Isn’t What You Say It Is: The Perception Gap That’s Costing You Loyalty

ByMeghan Labot Updated on
Branding notes
Photo by fotodestock / Envato Elements

Most businesses are, at a minimum, familiar with the importance of branding in customer decisions. Between the company and the customer, however, there can be a big disconnect. Organizations might think that they have great brand positioning and awareness but fail when customers aren’t aligned with the brand’s message. 

These branding blind spots can increase customer churn and other negative effects, especially as customers increasingly rely on brand perception to guide their decisions. With this guide, businesses can find ways to ensure that their branding goals effectively reach their target consumers. 

Why It’s Important to Have Accurate Brand Perception 

It is natural for companies to leverage a positive image as part of their branding. Of course, saying, “We’re the best in the business!” doesn’t necessarily lead to customers actually drawing that conclusion. A survey from Edelman revealed that customers develop brand perception based on reputation and their own experiences. Specifically, two out of three consumers will initially buy on brand recognition, but they will not continue if they do not trust the company. Plus, four in five say that they must trust a company to willingly choose the brand. Businesses that do not create that level of trust are less likely to keep those customers. 

Common Branding Blind Spots 

Companies often miss out on creating valuable branding experience through a combination of blind spots that make it harder to assess how they are really doing. Common branding blind spots include: 

  • Not understanding what is truly important for customers in your category 
  • Offering selling points that do not materialize for customers 
  • Ensuring brand messaging is consistent across channels  Relying on customer experiences that feel outdated or off-brand 
  • Assuming that regular customers are satisfied and loyal to the brand by default 

Understanding how the gaps between customer and company brand perception happen can help identify actionable goals to align them. 

How to Align Company and Customer Brand Perception 

Evaluate brand perception: Businesses need to know what their customers think of them. The fastest way to get a sense for brand perception is to use data analytics. Brand consulting firms can quickly assess a company’s social media and online presence for mentions, engagement, and other metrics. This information can lead to critical insights about customer experience that shape brand perception. 

Collect individual feedback: Although tracking engagement and other metrics can be helpful in establishing the overall tenor of people’s engagement with the brand, individual feedback can also be useful. Consumer surveys are a practical tool to allow prospective, current, and former customers the opportunity to express their perspectives. Company employees can also provide critical feedback about customer experience and overall sentiment, since they are more likely to be responsible for creating experiences and resolving related issues. 

Compare benchmarks to competitors: Although every brand seeks to be unique, it can be useful to evaluate the competition’s branding. Peer benchmarking involves assessing competitors for their product and service lines, messaging, positioning, and overall brand perception. This data, particularly concerning peers with greater success in securing and keeping customers, may provide insights that companies can use to ensure their own branding meets the mark. 

Streamline customer experiences: Businesses need to use all this information to create a customer experience that reflects branding goals. Steps might include: 

  • Updating messaging to reflect current brand storytelling and vision across all platforms 
  • Minimizing disconnects between business offerings and customer expectations 
  • Streamlining touchpoints to ensure that customers face few hurdles as they progress through the sales funnel 

This effort may require continual refinement, using metrics to assess success of each branding campaign. 

Branding is only as good as the perception customers have when they experience it, which is why it is crucial for businesses to be comprehensive when assessing brand perception. By understanding the blind spots that create gaps between company and customer brand perception, businesses can tailor their efforts to close those gaps and improve their brand positioning. 

Author bio:  Meghan Labot is SVP, Chief Growth Officer at The Brand Consultancy, a full-service, independent brand consulting firm. With 20 years of experience, Meghan has become a strategic and results-driven business leader, helping clients across a wide variety of industries, including healthcare, tech, consumer, and non-profits. 

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