If you’re running a medium-sized business, you could be forgiven for thinking brand indexes aren’t very important to you. However, a brand index can tell you a lot about how your market is behaving. The insights gained from this can help shape key decisions within your company for the better. In this article,  we look at what exactly a brand index tells you, and what this means for smaller businesses than those appearing on the indexes.

A brand index will use a variety of different metrics to produce an overall score, often referred to as brand equity. These metrics might be things such as unprompted brand recall, purchase intent, or net promoter score. These metrics will vary depending on which brand index you’re looking at. 

While the brands appearing in these lists (as often they’ll only show the top 10 or so) will only be well-known brands, the picture they paint of a market’s landscape is very telling. Comparing the changes in these specific metrics can show how attitudes and behaviors are changing within them. This can help signpost for smaller business where a market is heading. For example, if purchase intent has dropped across all brands to some extent, it shows that the sector might be struggling. So, a business can make the necessary decisions to overcome this before their sales revenue starts to drop.  

You can also isolate key attributes of the brands that are continually performing high on the list, and see how your business can adapt these in one way or another. This might be anything from a marketing strategy, to a group of USPs. While vice versa, seeing links between those that are not performing as well; can reveal areas to avoid. 

If you’re a business not appearing on these lists designed for larger brands, it can be worthwhile turning your attention to brand tracking. This is a way in which you can get a detailed snapshot of how your brand is performing in national or international markets. Brand trackers can be tailored to suit your needs. For example, they’ll identify and show how you are faring compared to direct competitors of similar size, or by comparing a specific key metric. Basically, you have more control over the scope within which you want to compare your brand.