If your brand tracker is not working as well as it used to, or if you don't have one at all, it's time build a tracker that will set your brand up to grow.

Brand tracking has faced something of a crisis recently. Many trackers retain some of the relics of methodologies past. They are often too long, measure the wrong things, or just don't add value to your marketing plans the way they used to. When done well, a brand tracker provides vital information that will form the foundation for everything you set out to achieve for your brand. Whether it's developing strategies through to measuring effectiveness, your tracker is the most fundamental and essential tool.

There are no real secrets to building a great tracker. It comes down to understanding what you need and how to get it.

1. Keep it short
Perhaps the most common problem with trackers, and particularly ones that have been running for a while, is that they are too long. A 20 minute survey was barely acceptable in the days of telephone interviewing. Now with surveys being completed online and, increasingly, on mobile, it's best to keep the timings to 10-15 minutes at the absolute maximum. Which leads us to…

2. Keep it focused
It's tempting to use a tracker as a catch-all market research study, throwing in questions just for interest's sake. However to be effective you need to really understand what you want and need to measure, and stick to that.

Exactly what to include will vary depending on the category you operate in, your objectives, and your business' approach to marketing, but at the core of this will be a set of metrics that you will track regularly. This is likely to include brand health, attributes, and perceptions: essentially how well do people know your brand and what does it stand for.

It's also important though to allow some room to address particular issues as they arise, for example to test an ad or to gauge opinion on a particular issue. This will give you a rich and regular source of new insight.

3. Share the results
For many trackers, failure comes because key stakeholders through the business do not see the value. It's critical to make sure the data is readily available in a format that can be easily understood by everyone who needs it. A lengthy and repetitive Powerpoint deck is not the answer.

A customised dashboard will allow people to quickly find the information they need. This is the single most important factor in proving the value of brand tracking to your organisation. If you don't have one, get one.

Tracking a brand's performance is still an essential part of a brand manager's role. It is important to ensure that your brand tracker remains a healthy and effective tool.

To find out more about how Edentify can build a powerful brand tracking study for your brand contact us.