A crash course on Brand Awareness????
Brand awareness is a marketing objective that often gets overlooked.
Let's break down what it is, and why we need to be paying attention to it!
What is brand awareness? ??
Brand awareness refers to how much your audience recognises your brand and the offering you provide. Often, this becomes relevant when your audience experiences a demand for products/services and your brand is what comes to their minds.
A lot of customers will not always be ready to buy. Brand awareness is about nurturing these customers until they are, so you're at the forefront of their mind.
This quote from SproutSocial sums it up well:
"Brand awareness is the extent to which audiences are familiar with your?brand’s identity?and its product or services. It is the bedrock of your sales funnel. After all, you need to be able to recognize a brand to trust and buy from it."
Why is it so important? ??
Although you can't put an exact metric or ROI (Return on Investment) on it, brand awareness is more significant than you think.
For example, let's take a customer who isn't ready to buy a product from you yet. They're scrolling through LinkedIn and see a post from your company about your staff having training. They go on Instagram and see a well-renowned influencer advocating your company and praising it. An advert for your company comes blasting through the radio whilst they're driving.
Fast forward to 3 weeks later. The customer has continuously consumed different types of content from various media outlets. They have identified a demand for a product and need to purchase it.
Who do they think of? Your company of course!
How can you work on brand awareness? ??
I'd suggest stripping it right back to the beginning. Refining everything from your brand story, tone of voice and even basics like corporate colours. That way, when you work on brand awareness, you are producing consistency that is more likely to project your brand into customer's minds.
Varying the content you produce is a big step to this project. Whilst staying true to your brand and values, it doesn't hurt to try some new types of content or even some new media platforms!
Try approaches like collaborating with others, building a presence online and creating shareable content. If you can try a new marketing tool or content type, that still applies to your audience and reflects your brand; you're on to a winner.
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This blog from Sprout Social has some great ideas for inspiration!
What are the frustrations behind brand awareness? ??
Brand awareness is hard to measure, without exact ROIs and metrics it is challenging. How do you pinpoint the exact marketing tool that made the customer convert into a sale?
Short answer: You can't.
With the process of nurturing the customer over time, through different avenues or varied content, you have to trust the process. You just have to have faith that, at some point, the customer saw one of those marketing tools and that's what arguably converted the sale.
How do I know it's working? ??
Despite not having exact ROIs, there are aspects you can look at to see if your brand awareness project is working. For example:
Summary ??
To conclude, brand awareness is a project that isn't perfected from the get-go (Rome wasn't built in a day). Once you understand the purpose behind it, it becomes easier to reflect your brand in the content you produce. Trust the process!
And that's that! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out ??
Let me introduce myself...
I'm Amy, a marketing assistant from the South coast of England. After taking an interest in marketing during school, I've always been passionate about how it keeps you on your toes. The excitement of learning daily with a fast-paced, innovative area of business is a challenge I love rising to.
Recently achieving a Level 3 in CIM Professional Marketing diploma, I felt like this was the right time to start writing some articles to open some insightful interactions about all things marketing!
Head of Communications, Exhibitions at William Reed
1 年Great article Amy! Brand saliency is certainly difficult to measure, but is so important to the long-term sustainability of a business. However, as you said, without clear metrics or ROI, many businesses overlook this and miss the fact that you have to invest in order to grow. You’ve got to ply the long game.
working in the offshore wind industry with a passion for sustainability
1 年Great article Amy ??
Sales and Marketing Executive - Seawhite of Brighton - The UK's Leading Sketchbook Manufacturer and Art Materials Supplier
1 年??
When busy Sales Managers and Directors love their sales team, but also want to scream at them to improve their results, they call me. I help their teams sell more, to the people they want, in less time.
1 年Love this Amy!