Share of Voice (SOV) is a critical metric in evaluating the overall marketing efforts as it reflects both marketing efficiency and product performance. In order to efficiently gauge brand visibility, it is vital to understand this metric and leverage the same to gain an edge over your competitors.
What is Share of Voice?
SOV is a brand’s share of the total spending for the category for a specific time period. In short, it’s the measure of the market the brand owns compared with its competitor. The below is the generic share of voice formula
Though there is a relationship between both metrics, SOV is often confused with Share of Market (SOM). To clarify, SOM is the brand’s share in the total sales in that category in a given time period, whereas SOV is the brand’s share of resonance in that category in the same period.
Why is Share of Voice Important for the business?
SOV has always been an important metric for marketers as it helps them in assessing the visibility of their brand in the marketing place. Traditionally, SOV echoed the voice of the brands and their ability to gain media exposure. But, with the increase in social media penetration and customers sharing their viewpoints on it, SOV has become the voice of the customers that brands must perceive.
The following are the reasons why SOV is critical to the brand & business:
Acts as a barometer to the reputation and visibility of a brand
- Measures the success of the marketing campaigns
- Helps in strategizing and optimizing marketing spends
- Helps in understanding the market and the competitor landscape
- Provides insights into the customers, competitors, industry trends and issues
How to increase Share of Voice?
If the objective is to improve the performance and market share of your brand, it is essential to scale up the SOV.
- Know Your Share of Voice
The first step forward is to accurately determine the SOV, not only at the brand level but also on the Segment, Category, and Product levels. As it may sound simple, it requires a robust tool with lexical text analysis and Machine Learning algorithms that mines the following data from Social Media, Search Engines, Competitor, Review, and E-Commerce websites and transforms into meaningful insights.
- Brand Mentions
- Hashtags
- E-Commerce Listings
- Customer Reviews
- Ad Impressions
- Search Results
Accurate SOV not only helps to understand the brand’s position in the market landscape but also assists in better understanding the competitors and device further strategies in winning the market.
- Leverage Allied Metrics
SOV used in conjunction with Brand Development Index (BDI) and Category Development Index (CDI) can help marketers focus on markets that have potential and optimize their marketing spends. Growth in both BDI and CDI eventually contributes to an increase in SOV.
The Brand Development Index (BDI) quantifies how well a brand performs in a market, compared with its average performance among all markets. That is, it measures the relative sales strength of a brand within a specific market [Source: Wikipedia]
The Category Development Index (CDI) measures the sales performance of a category of goods or services in a specific group, compared with its average performance among all consumers. By definition, CDI measures the sales strength of a particular product category within a specific market. [Source: Wikipedia]
Source: https://braindispenser.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/how-to-use-bdi-and-cdi-for-planning-updated/
Go With The Trend
It’s pivotal for a brand to keep up with the ever changing social trends. The best way to stay afloat as a brand is by understanding the content that’s consumed by the Target Audience. By tracking the flash trends in the market and by creating content with trending keywords and phrases shall contribute to brand awareness, thus boosting the SOV.
Influencer Marketing
Partnering with the right influencer in the niche can help to build trust in the brand. Influencers also help in creating compelling content that connects well with the Target Audience and boosts brand awareness. Knowing your influencers and the right way to connect with them and their followers is key in boosting SOV.
The Market Landscape module of the Setuserv’s Customer Review Insights and Signal (CRIS) platform can help brands understand their effective SOV and industry trends and help them boost their market share and stay ahead of their competition. Read more about the CRIS platform here.