What is Brand Awareness anyway? Google defines it as “the extent to which consumers are familiar with the qualities or image of a particular brand of goods or services.” Another definition says that Brand Awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand.
In light of these definitions, you need to ask yourself, is your brand memorable? If a random joe on the streets should see your brand colors or logo, will they quickly relate it to your brand? If your answer is yes, great job! Your brand is doing really good in terms of brand awareness and you are definitely enjoying the benefits. If the case is otherwise, you have a lot of work to do in making your brand memorable.
Why Brand Awareness Campaigns?
How will you get your target audience to know that you are in business? How will they know that you just launched a new product? Awareness.
Brand awareness is at the very top of the marketing funnel. Without it, you cannot pique their interest or even get them to know about your brand. One of the purposes of running brand awareness campaigns is to make your brand a household name. Your target audience may not be the average person, however, if they know your brand and what you do, you can be sure that your target audience knows about your brand. Brands run awareness campaigns when they are just launching into the market, when they just launched a new product, achieved a huge milestone and more.
Brand awareness campaigns are expensive. As the Nigerian proverb goes; “soup wey sweet, na money kill am.” In order to get your brand in front of as many eyeballs as possible, you need to spend quite a lot of money on both online and traditional media. You need to target the areas that will give you the most visibility and create a catchy, relatable, unforgettable campaign that will linger in the minds of everyone who sees it. Check out this guide to creating great adverts that convert.
You cannot run a brand awareness campaign for one month and leave it at that. Brand awareness is continuous. Hence the reason why it is expensive but necessary for any brand that wants to stay relevant. You are probably asking what running brand awareness campaigns can do for your brand. Below are 7 things brand awareness can do for your business;
Top of mind awareness
It can put you at the top of consumers’ consideration lists when they think of purchasing a product or service you offer.
Increased revenue
Although this cannot be directly measured, your bottom line will grow significantly when more people are aware of your brand’s offerings.
Customer loyalty
Existing customers will generate a sense of loyalty to your brand. Seeing your product promotions or discounts will keep them up to date on your company’s products and offerings. This will spur repeat purchases and referrals.
Brand credibility
A brand that advertises automatically gains the trust of whoever sees their ad. After all, a business that advertises is one who is confident in the product and service that they offer.
Word of mouth marketing
People talk about brands that solve individual or societal issues. What solutions does your brand offer? Create your campaigns around these solutions to problems and people will tell other people who will tell other people about your solution to their problems.
Brand recognition
Brand awareness campaigns get people familiar with your brand. Subconsciously, people begin to relate your brand to colors, designs or fonts. For example when you see two inverted C’s that converge in the middle, what brand comes to your mind? Coco Chanel of course!
Brand recall
It merges your products with your brand in the consumers’ minds such that when anyone asks them where they can get that particular product or service, your brands’ name automatically rolls out of their mouths whether they consciously mean it or not.
Conclusion
You may not have a huge marketing budget to spend on both traditional and online brand awareness for your business, you can, however, start somewhere. There are over 92.3 million internet users in Nigeria alone who spend most of their time online. Target them with your Google display ads, search ads and other social media ad platforms that they spend their time.
You may not be able to place adverts on billboards but you can partner with brands that can place your logo alongside theirs on billboards. How can you achieve this? It is simple! Sponsor events that they are organizing. You may not be able to give monetary support but you can offer your service for free in return for free publicity. Sponsor local events that can give your brand the awareness it needs. Speak at events, be heard, be seen, be known, be talked about, grow your bottom line.