Effective Brand Awareness Tactics That Elevate Your Profile
Dry cleaning services, cookie companies, and dog grooming salons – what do they all have in common?
They are all examples of small businesses that start with a single location and scale upwards. In 2017, Crumbl debuted their first cookie shop in Logan, Utah. Fast-forward to today, and Crumbl currently touts over 850 locations nationwide.
However, achieving that level of clout is an uphill battle, especially for new companies that are still establishing themselves and their brand with consumers. So, how do you create brand awareness? What are the most effective brand awareness tactics?
The best place to start is by understanding your customer and where they’re at on their journey.
Forget the Funnel – Welcome to the Relay Race!
The marketing funnel is a visual representation of the customer journey. Brand awareness resides at the highest level, which is where people become familiar with a brand. After people are familiar with a brand, they move down the funnel to the consideration phase. During this phase, customers compare the new brand to their established competitors. If a customer decides to give the new brand their business, they become a conversion, which is the lowest point in the funnel.
The issue with the traditional marketing funnel is that it doesn’t accurately represent the journey of every customer. Granted, some follow the funnel method in a linear path. Others may exit the funnel and reenter at a different point. Rather than imagining the customer journey as a funnel, our marketers at iFocus prefer to think of it as a relay race consisting of:
- Brand awareness
- Research and interest
- Lead generation and sales
- Retention and advocacy
The proverbial baton may be passed back and forth numerous times among each “leg” of the race. For example, a customer who is eager to buy may jump straight into the research phase and then to lead generation, skipping brand awareness altogether in lieu of reaching a solution to their problem.
In terms of digital marketing, brand awareness works best when it’s dynamic and measurable. The sooner a company establishes itself in the hearts and minds of consumers, the sooner you can propel them to the next leg of the relay race.
5 Effective Digital Marketing Brand Awareness Tactics
Brand awareness is difficult to measure but by no means impossible. Although it can’t be determined how many people think about your brand or talk about it over their lunch break with co-workers, there are metrics that provide a baseline for this particular leg.
Social media engagement, website traffic, and the number of impressions on your content and ads are reliable brand awareness indicators. If your Facebook posts aren’t getting any “likes” and your website never exceeds a few clicks per day, it’s safe to assume your brand awareness needs elevating.
As an award-winning ad agency in Kansas City with plenty of experience in these matters, iFocus Marketing knows there’s no-one-size-fits-all blueprint for creating brand awareness. Unique businesses demand customized marketing solutions. Keeping that in mind, consider the following five brand awareness tactics:
- Social media channels are the online hangout spots customers visit off and on throughout the day. Using social media ads, we can deliver memorable branded creative to the exact places your target audience visits the most, while organic social media content supports your brand awareness efforts.
- Your customers do more online besides social media. They check the weather, read the news, and watch movie trailers. Using targeted display ads, your brand will be placed directly in their sightline across several different websites. By leveraging consumer demographics like location, age, gender, and interests, display ads can be precisely geared towards your target demographic. Another common targeting method is geofencing, which targets specified audiences that are within a geographic fence, such as a specific zip code or community.
- Google processes billions of searches per day, which means there’s plenty of brand awareness opportunity for the right marketer. Using Google Discovery ads, potential customers will see highly engaging and personalized ads when using Gmail, Google, and YouTube.
- Recent statistics estimate there are 140 million podcast listeners in the U.S. Using digital audio advertising, brands can reach their customers on Pandora, Spotify, and other popular streaming apps. Research shows that listeners are less likely to skip ads when listening to their favorite podcasts, making this an effective brand awareness tactic.
- The traditional TV commercial is going the way of the dinosaur. In today’s digital landscape, your customer streams on platforms like Hulu and SlingTV. Over-the-top (OTT) adsOver-the-top (OTT) ads are perfect for targeting customers who have cut the cord so that your video appears on their favorite streaming services. Our ad agency in Kansas City can target specific demographics by city or zip code, which maximizes your marketing dollars.
How to Create a Memorable and Effective Digital Marketing Brand Awareness Strategy
Brand awareness elevates previously unknown or new companies to household names people talk about and recommend to their friends, which achieves a critical step in the customer journey. Still unsure about which brand awareness tactics are right for your specific business or industry? iFocus Marketing can help!
By scheduling a discovery call with us, our expert digital marketers can evaluate your brand’s current position and determine which awareness tactics will be most effective. Get in touch with us today to see how our marketing solutions and team of experts can help you reach your business goals.
Brandon Tietz is a senior digital copywriter at iFocus Marketing with close to a decade of marketing experience. He has written for clients in retail, real estate, automotive, education, manufacturing, healthcare, consumer goods, and several other spaces. In addition to copywriting, he has authored books, published short stories, written for several online and print publications, and was named “Best Local Writer” by The Pitch for his debut novel. He’s currently living the dream in the ‘burbs with his wonderful wife and their two dogs, Dr. Croutons and Professor Pickles.
