Brand Awareness: A Powerful Marketing Strategy, But Not for Everyone!

In my previous article, “5 Steps to Creating a Marketing Strategy aligned with your Business goals ”, I explained how to create and identify your Marketing Strategy.

Today, let’s dive into Brand Awareness Marketing Strategy, how it works, who it is for, and how to implement it.

- Does everyone need to Increase their Brand or Product Awareness?

- No! I’ll get back to this at the bottom of the article.

Brand awareness is the degree to which consumers recognize and remember a brand or a product. The more people know about your product or brand, the more potential customers you have. ??

Why is Brand Awareness important? Brands with high brand awareness enjoy many benefits, such as:

• Increased market share and competitive advantage
• Higher customer retention and satisfaction
• More referrals and word-of-mouth
• Lower customer acquisition costs and higher lifetime value
• Enhanced reputation and credibility

So, how do you increase your brand awareness if you need to? ?? Here are six steps you can follow to achieve this goal:

1. Create a strong Brand Identity ?? Your brand identity is the foundation of your brand awareness. It is the sum of all the elements that define who you are, what you do, why, and how you do it. Your brand identity includes your Name, Logo, Images, Values, Mission, Vision, Purpose, Micro-copy …

Your brand identity should be consistent and unique across all platforms and channels. It should reflect your personality and differentiate you from your competitors. It should also resonate with your target audience and communicate your value proposition.

1. Know your audience and value proposition. ?? Before increasing your brand awareness, you need to know who you want to reach and what you want to offer them. Research your market and identify your ideal customer profile, needs, preferences, and pain points. ?? Then, craft a clear and compelling value proposition that showcases how your brand can solve their problems or fulfill their desires. ??
2. Create a memorable brand identity and voice. ?? Your brand identity and voice are the visual and verbal elements that communicate your brand personality and values to your audience. They include your logo, colors, fonts, slogan, tone, and style. Ensure they are consistent, distinctive, and appealing across all your touchpoints, such as your website, social media, packaging, and advertising ?? .
3. Use online platforms and channels to share valuable content. ?? The internet offers many opportunities to increase brand awareness among a large and diverse audience. You can use online platforms and channels such as social media, blogs, podcasts, videos, webinars, email marketing ?? , influencer marketing, and online advertising to create and distribute valuable content that educates, entertains, or inspires ?? your audience and showcases your brand expertise and authority.
4. Engage with your audience and encourage word-of-mouth. ?? One of the best ways to increase brand awareness is to interact with your audience and build relationships with them. You can do this by responding to their comments, questions, feedback, or reviews, creating user-generated content campaigns, hosting contests or giveaways, creating loyalty or referral programs, or partnering with other brands or organizations that share your values or vision.
5. Measure and optimize your results. ?? To ensure your efforts are effective and efficient, you must track and analyze your results. You can use various metrics and tools to measure your brand awareness, such as web traffic, social media followers, engagement rates, mentions, impressions, reach, sentiment analysis ?? ?? , surveys, or polls. Based on your findings, you can optimize your strategies and tactics to improve your performance and achieve your goals.

Read about Lead generation marketing strategy: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/marketing-strategy-lead-generation-andrei-haret-06nqc/

Some examples of brands with strong brand identities are:

• ??Apple: Apple is known for its innovative products, minimalist design, and customer-centric approach. Its name, logo, slogan (“Think Different”), and colors (black and white) are easily recognizable and memorable. Its brand identity conveys its values of creativity, simplicity, and excellence.
• ??Nike: Nike is known for its athletic products, inspirational messages, and social responsibility. Its name, logo (the swoosh), slogan (“Just Do It”), and colors (red and white) are iconic and influential. Its brand identity conveys its values of performance, motivation, and empowerment.

• ?? Mailchimp: Mailchimp is known for its email marketing products, humorous tone, and quirky illustrations. Its brand voice is friendly, witty, and playful. Its brand image is colorful, fun, and expressive. Its brand voice and image convey its value proposition of making email marketing easy, enjoyable, and effective.
• ?? Lego: Lego is known for its toy products, creative stories, and iconic models. Its brand voice is imaginative, adventurous, and nostalgic. Its brand image is bright, dynamic, and recognizable. Its brand voice and image convey its value proposition of inspiring children to build their worlds.

However, increasing brand awareness is not always necessary for every marketing strategy. ?? It depends on your business goals, product or service, and target audience.

In general, most of the mass-market products would benefit from increased brand awareness. This is because when someone is deciding on a product or service, they are more likely to consider you if they are aware of you. ??

However, there are some cases where increasing brand awareness may not be necessary or effective. ?? These include:

• Niche products or services that cater to a very specific segment of the market, such as rare collectibles, specialized equipment, customized solutions, niche software, etc. ?? These products or services may not benefit from mass exposure, as they rely on word-of-mouth, referrals, or targeted advertising to reach their potential customers. ???
• Low-involvement products that are purchased frequently, cheaply, and with little thought, such as toothpaste, soap, or batteries. ?? These products may have low brand loyalty, as consumers tend to choose based on price, availability, or habit.
• Commodity products that are standardized and undifferentiated, such as salt, sugar, or water. ?? These products have low margins and high competition, and consumers may not have any preference for one brand over another. ??
• Private label products that are manufactured by one company and sold under another company’s brand name, such as store brands or white-label products. ?? These products may have lower costs and higher margins than branded products and may appeal to consumers looking for value or convenience.
• For Bootstrapped startups, this strategy is challenging because brand awareness tactics, especially offline, are difficult to measure. So it’s hard to see if you are generating traction. Also, brand awareness is a long-term play. Results will take time, and you can never see them without a long enough runway.

Brand awareness is a vital marketing strategy, but it is not enough on its own. It is also important to combine brand awareness with other marketing strategies, such as improving conversion rate or retention. I’ll describe them in the next articles.

Learn more:

Here are three books that will help you dive deep into this topic:

Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger: This book explains the science behind why some products, ideas, or campaigns go viral and how to create your own contagious content. It covers six principles of contagiousness, such as social currency, emotion, and stories, and provides practical examples and tips.        

The Brand Mapping Strategy by Karen Tiber Leland: This book guides you through the process of creating a brand map, which is a visual representation of your brand’s position, promise, personality, and perception. It helps you identify your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and align your brand with your target audience’s needs and wants.        

Purple Cow by Seth Godin: This book challenges you to be remarkable and stand out from the crowd. It argues that traditional marketing methods are no longer effective in today’s saturated and noisy market, and that you need to create a purple cow, which is something that is worth noticing and talking about.