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HARNESSING bRAND SENTIMENT AND THE POWER OF PERCEPTION 1

Harnessing brand sentiment and the power of perception

Brand sentiment serves as a crucial indicator of how your brand is perceived by both your target audience and the broader public. Understanding and fostering positive brand sentiment can yield various benefits for your brand. It encompasses the emotions and attitudes evoked by your brand, ranging from positive and neutral to negative feelings.

Table of contents

What is brand sentiment?

Brand sentiment refers to the emotions and perceptions evoked by your brand. For instance, consumers and the broader market may experience positive, neutral, or negative feelings toward your brand.

What is brand sentiment

Brand sentiment is conveyed through various channels, including third-party reviews, consumer feedback, social media interactions, and word-of-mouth recommendations. It extends beyond external perceptions, also encompassing how your employees view the company internally.

 

Analyzing brand sentiment becomes more insightful when you can isolate sentiments related to specific topics. This allows you to grasp positive perceptions and identify potential barriers for consumers. For instance, a consumer might have positive feelings about your product quality but harbor negative sentiments about the pricing.

 

Artificial intelligence and machine learning, coupled with Natural Language Understanding (NLU), provide powerful tools for measuring brand sentiment. These technologies enable the analysis of text inputs, such as open-text survey responses and social media posts, by recognizing indicators of sentiment and automatically categorizing them as positive, neutral, or negative.

 

Measuring brand sentiment is essential for several reasons. It can provide a return on investment (ROI) by offering insights into consumer perceptions and preferences. Understanding the root causes behind positive or negative sentiment allows you to make informed decisions to enhance your brand’s overall image.

 

To positively influence brand sentiment, focus on addressing the root causes of negative perceptions. This might involve improving specific aspects of your products or services based on consumer feedback. Additionally, engage with your audience through social media and other platforms to build positive relationships and showcase your brand’s values.

Why is Brand Sentiment Important?

Brand sentiment is crucial due to its ability to gauge the intangible and often challenging-to-quantify emotions and perceptions associated with a brand. While it may not be as straightforward as measuring metrics like NPS or CSAT, brand sentiment serves as an essential indicator with significant implications for business outcomes.

 

Positive brand sentiment is a reliable indicator of consumer loyalty, potential spending behavior, and employee retention. On the contrary, negative sentiment can signal high consumer churn, a tarnished brand image, or operational issues within the brand.

 

Staying competitive in the market is another reason why brand sentiment is important. The widespread adoption of consumer sentiment analysis tools indicates the industry’s recognition of its value. By tracking brand sentiment, businesses can enhance their services, better understand consumer desires, and stay ahead of the competition.

 

Consumer feedback is invaluable, and brand sentiment analysis facilitates not only the collection of solicited feedback but also the discovery of new ideas from unsolicited feedback. Brands can use this information to meet and exceed customer expectations, demonstrating responsiveness to consumer opinions.

Why should you track brand sentiment over time?

Tracking brand sentiment over time is essential because as a brand evolves, introduces new products, or implements new marketing strategies, the perception of the brand will inevitably change. This longitudinal analysis helps build a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing consumer sentiment and enables brands to predict how changes may impact their reputation.

What is “good” brand sentiment and why do you need it?

“Good” brand sentiment encompasses positive perceptions and feelings about your brand.

Positive Sentiments include

Positive Sentiments include
  • High Quality and Consistent Products/Services: Consumers associate your brand with products or services that consistently meet or exceed their expectations in terms of quality.

 

  • Helpful Staff: Positive interactions with your staff, whether in-store or online, contribute to favorable brand sentiment. Consumers appreciate helpful and knowledgeable employees.

 

  • Great Value for Money: Customers feel they are getting a good deal or value for their money when choosing your brand over others.

 

  • Clear and Transparent Interactions with Customer Service: Transparent communication and efficient problem resolution through customer service contribute positively to brand sentiment.

On the flip side, negative sentiments may include

negative sentiments may include
  • Bad or Misleading Products/Services: Consumers expressing dissatisfaction with the quality or accuracy of your products or services.

 

  • Feeling Misled About Brand Values: Negative reactions when customers perceive inconsistencies or dishonesty regarding your brand’s stated values.

 

  • Upset About Customer Service: Unresolved issues or poor experiences with customer service can lead to negative sentiment.

 

  • Angry About Marketing Strategy: If your marketing efforts are perceived as deceptive or offensive, it can generate negative sentiment.

 

It’s important to note that sentiment is subjective and context-dependent. What may be considered negative for one brand could be positive for another, and vice versa. For instance, the term “cheap” might be viewed negatively for a luxury brand but positively for a brand that focuses on offering value-for-money products.

Why do you need “good” brand sentiment?

Having “good” brand sentiment is crucial for several reasons, as it directly impacts consumer behavior and influences their perceptions. Here are key reasons why maintaining positive brand sentiment is essential:

 

  • Customer Loyalty and Advocacy: Positive brand sentiment fosters customer loyalty. When consumers perceive your brand as consistently providing high-quality services, they are more likely to remain loyal and become advocates, recommending your brand to others.

 

  • Purchase Intent: Consumers are more likely to choose your brand over competitors if they have positive sentiments about it. Positive brand perceptions contribute to increased purchase intent, driving business growth.

 

  • Online Reputation Management: In the age of digital communication, negative sentiment expressed online can quickly influence potential consumers. Managing and maintaining positive brand sentiment helps counteract potential negative impacts on your online reputation.

 

  • Consumer Trust: Positive sentiment builds trust. When consumers have positive experiences with your brand and see others expressing similar sentiments, it reinforces trust in your products or services.

 

  • Brand Consideration: Consumers actively consider brands that have positive sentiment. When making purchasing decisions, potential customers often turn to reviews, social media, and other online platforms to gauge how others feel about a brand.

Measuring Brand Sentiment

To measure brand sentiment, brand sentiment analysis is employed. This process involves analyzing natural language inputs, such as open-text comments, social media posts, or transcripts of customer phone calls. Sentiment analysis tools, typically powered by Natural Language Understanding (NLU), automatically categorize text as positive, negative, or neutral.

 

Key considerations for accurate brand sentiment analysis include:

 

  • Nuanced Sentiment: Brand sentiment is often nuanced, and tools should be capable of recognizing varying degrees of positivity or negativity within a single statement.

 

  • Topic Identification: Identifying sentiments related to specific topics, such as product quality or customer service, allows for a more granular understanding of consumer perceptions.

 

  • Context Understanding: The analysis tool should be adept at understanding the context and nuances of natural language, including sarcasm, to avoid misinterpretations.

 

However, maintaining “good” brand sentiment is crucial for building customer loyalty, influencing purchase decisions, managing online reputation, and fostering consumer trust. Employing accurate brand sentiment analysis tools with a deep understanding of natural language is vital for obtaining actionable insights and making informed decisions to enhance overall brand perception.

Sources for Brand Sentiment Analysis

  • Open text feedback on consumer feedback surveys
  • Comments or posts on social media platforms
  • Online reviews on third-party websites
  • Forums and blogs
  • Focus groups
  • Clients’ feedback over email
  • Online conversations on your live chat website function
  • Telephone transcripts from your consumer service calls

Why More Than Social Sentiment Analysis is Needed

Why More Than Social Sentiment Analysis is Needed

While social sentiment analysis is valuable for pinpointing reactions on social media, relying solely on it provides only a partial view. Analyzing sentiment across various channels where consumers interact with your brand offers a broader perspective. Engaging with current consumers through multiple channels allows you to understand their concerns, preferences, and passions, providing a more comprehensive understanding of brand sentiment. This approach enables you to turn negative experiences around and address consumer feedback effectively.

Difference Between Text Analytics and Sentiment Analysis

It involves the analysis of unstructured text to extract valuable information and derive business intelligence insights. Text analytics helps in understanding patterns, trends, and key themes within large volumes of textual data. It goes beyond sentiment analysis, encompassing a broader range of data mining and information extraction techniques.

Whereas, this specifically focuses on determining whether a written expression is positive, neutral, or negative in nature and to what degree. Sentiment analysis is a subset of text analytics, honing in on emotions and opinions expressed in textual content. It provides insights into how people feel about a brand, product, or topic based on their language and expressions.

Calculating Brand Sentiment

As mentioned, calculating brand sentiment requires the right sentiment analysis tools. The process of brand sentiment analysis as a whole can be divided into these actions.

Find the Right Brand Sentiment Analysis Tool

To calculate brand sentiment, you need a sentiment analysis tool capable of collecting extensive data, processing it effectively, and providing targeted and relevant insights. Key features to consider in a sentiment analysis tool include.

 

  • Always-on and real-time sentiment analysis with nuanced analysis beyond Positive, Neutral, and Negative sentiments.
  • Sentiment score for tracking and improvement.
  • Data collection from every channel (social media, online reviews, customer service conversations, employee feedback, etc.).
  • AI-powered conversation analytics with Natural Language Understanding (NLU) built on comprehensive data models.
  • Automatic trend and insight discovery.
  • Automatic delivery of insights to appropriate teams.

Collect Your Data

  • Gather data from various sources, including open-text responses on consumer satisfaction surveys, comments on social media, employee feedback forms, etc.

 

  • Consider factors like sentiment, velocity (how often a sentiment is expressed), and common engagement metrics (views, reactions) for a comprehensive understanding.

Implement Your Sentiment Analysis

  • Use the sentiment analysis tool to process collected data and assign sentiment tags (e.g., Very Negative, Negative, Neutral, Positive, Very Positive, or Mixed Sentiment).

 

  • Obtain a sentiment score to quantify the overall sentiment results.

Get Insights

Extract insights from the sentiment analysis, including:

  • Sentiment score comparison to benchmark brand sentiment.
  • Opportunities to transform neutral or negative sentiment into positive sentiment.
  • Identification of emerging trends in discussions related to your brand.
  • Assessment of risks impacting brand sentiment.
  • Competitive analysis comparing brand perception to competitors.

Take Action

  • Deliver insights to relevant team members with actionable recommendations.
  • Develop strategies to address identified opportunities and challenges.
  • Leverage insights to refine marketing strategies, improve existing initiatives, and plan future actions.
  • Actively respond to consumer sentiments, especially in areas where improvements can be made.

 

By following these steps, brands can systematically analyze and understand their sentiment landscape, gather actionable insights, and take strategic actions to improve overall brand sentiment. Continuous monitoring and adaptation based on insights ensure that brands stay responsive to consumer perceptions and preferences over time.

How to Improve Brand Sentiment

How to Improve Brand Sentiment

Here are some ways to improve Brand Sentiment.

Check Specific Brand Campaign Reactions

  • Analyze the performance of brand campaigns to understand how they are received by the audience.
  • Use sentiment analysis to measure the impact of marketing strategies on brand attitude.
  • Adjust campaigns based on sentiment insights to enhance their effectiveness.

Learn from Past Campaigns

  • Evaluate engagement across channels to understand its impact on sentiment.
  • Identify successful elements, such as video content or specific messaging, and replicate them in future campaigns.
  • Use continuous brand listening to turn sentiment analysis into insights for successful campaigns.

Train Consumer Service Teams Effectively

  • Utilize sentiment analysis across social media and consumer service interactions to identify topics with positive or negative reactions.
  • Provide data-led training to consumer service teams to improve consumer experiences.
  • Use insights to enhance employee effectiveness and responsiveness.

Close the Loop with Unhappy Consumers

  • Identify negative sentiments expressed by consumers and respond promptly to address concerns.
  • Publicly close the loop with dissatisfied consumers, demonstrating the brand’s commitment to resolving issues.
  • Offer meaningful solutions to improve consumer satisfaction.

Meet and Exceed Customer Expectations

  • Monitor media and social sentiments to understand consumer preferences and trends.
  • Implement positive changes suggested by consumers or promote existing positive aspects effectively.
  • For instance, if free shipping generates positive sentiment, consider implementing it to enhance brand loyalty.

Quickly Improve Business Processes

  • Identify areas with negative sentiment, such as consumer service, and implement changes swiftly.
  • Communicate improvements to consumers, demonstrating responsiveness to feedback and commitment to enhancing experiences.

Complete Granular Product Analysis

  • Analyze sentiment data to understand specific areas where products may need improvement.
  • Inform product teams about necessary changes, addressing concerns raised by specific customer segments.
  • Aim for improvements that positively impact brand perception and sentiment.

See What Competitors Are Doing Well

  • Monitor competitors’ brand sentiment and analyze their strengths and weaknesses.
  • Identify areas where competitors fall short, such as negative sentiment around costs or customer service.
  • Use insights to position your brand as a unique alternative, addressing consumer expectations more effectively.
  • Continuous monitoring of brand sentiment, coupled with actionable strategies based on insights, allows brands to adapt and improve over time. Implementing these actions fosters a positive brand image, enhances consumer experiences, and contributes to long-term brand success.

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