Why brand awareness is important
It doesn’t matter how long you spend on post through social channels or cranking up on your ad spend. Not unless your brand stands out from the crowd. Otherwise, your brand isn’t going to reach its potential.
Brand awareness is one of the main pillars of building a successful business; that includes B2B as well as consumer-facing brands. Have a think about it; when you go to buy a car, you’re likely to be much slower to opt for the obscure brand that you’ve never heard of before.
That said, if you’d seen some crisp, professional ads displaying this car as the newest in motor performance and you’ve consistently seen trustworthy reviews, then you’re far more likely to at least be open to learning more about this car brand. The same can be said for any industry. Consumers are smart. They’re reluctant to invest their money into unknown products and services. Brand awareness is where you can build real momentum and start standing out from your competitors.
Top methods to build brand awareness
1. Referral strategy
Referral marketing is an incredible option because you have the opportunity to generate brand awareness and acquire new customers at the same time. There’s not a whole pile of other methods that have this capability.
Also, you’re working with your loyal customers. Those that trust and admire your business are the ones that will be spreading the word to their friends, family and perhaps their social media followers.
AirBnb is an excellent example of what can happen when a business focuses on its referral programmes. They committed to making the referral programme as simple as possible for customers to partake. This included the ability to share across multiple channels, so whether it was via a link, Facebook or email – people would still find it easy and quick to spread the word.
AirBnb also found a difference when A/B email testing with one crucial element. Each invite needed to appear as a gift, not a promotion. And that applies to a lot of referral marketing. Making it sound inviting rather than pushy, will make people a lot more open and excited about joining in on the programme.
Taru Bhargava, author at AppVirality, describes just why this person-to-person referral experience is so effective:
“We tend to follow the footsteps of those whom we value. Sometimes these actions imitate ‘the monkey see and monkey do’ approach. According to a Nielsen report, 84% of people go by recommendations from friend and family. If we observe it carefully, word-of-mouth via mobile app referral follows the same trend. In Airbnb’s case, it was further elevated by a personalized landing page, when a user installed an app via a referral link.”
2. Create a brand awareness campaign
It’s not going to shock any of you reading this that campaigns these days primarily involve video.
Here are the three reasons that hold businesses back from creating video campaigns:
- 66% of marketers don’t make videos because they think it’s too time-consuming.
- 41% of marketers don’t make videos because they think it’s too complicated.
- 37% of marketers don’t make videos because they think it’s too expensive.
If this is what’s holding your brand back, then it’s time to open to the advances in technology.
A good smartphone can create videos. The quality won’t be cinematic, but it will still effectively get your message across.
Another key to creating a campaign within budget is organisation. If your team has decided that the video quality needs to be impressive, then a top-quality video production crew can create multiple campaigns in a batch. This makes each campaign more cost-effective and saves time. It’s also great for a business to have content ready to roll out in advance. Having professionals in the creative process will provide refinement in defining and connecting with your target audience. It also gives you the expertise to make your brand memorable within these videos.
There are many formats to play around with, here are just a few:
- Animation videos
- Brand introduction video
- Event videos
- Explainer videos
- Interview video
- Testimonial videos
- Tutorials/How to videos
- User-generated content
- Vlog
This is just a taster, yet it still gives plenty of scope on different angles that enliven your business and allow prospective customers to see into what makes your brand worthy of their attention.
3. Epic storytelling
No matter what format or platform you choose for your content, even the simplest photo tells a story, has a mood, conveys meaning. According to research by Headstream, if people love a brand story, 55% are more likely to buy the product in future, 44% will share the story, and 15% will buy the product immediately.
A memorable brand tells wonderful stories that connect with the audience, invokes emotions, and sparks interest. Creating stories that make your brand unforgettable, and you’ll win the interest of your audience.
4. Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting campaigns fosters brand awareness so effectively. This strategy reminds your website visitors of your products and services after they leave your website without buying. After visiting specific pages, it allows you to retarget them and show your visitors relevant visual or text ads when they visit other websites. These are your audience segment that have a high potential of becoming customers. They’ve browsed your website but perhaps need time to consider the purchase. Drawing from the infamous rule of seven, it takes an average of seven interactions with your brand before a purchase will take place.
Retargeting enables your brand to focus on perspectives that are most likely to become customers. This refinement boosts brand awareness and also offers personalisation in the content that you use to interact with this segment. They will see your content across various websites and social channels that they use. People will have a conception that your brand is successful and reliable as they’ll become familiar with your branding and learning more about your business ad by ad.
Brand awareness isn’t rocket science. If you follow these steps and ensure that your content is both high-quality, engaging and has a strong storytelling core– then you’ll see tangible evidence of growth in brand awareness. If you’re looking for a professional team of storytelling content creators, you can get in touch with us here at Videoworks.