Brand awareness is especially important when a new product or service is launched on the market. As a business, you want to ensure consumers know about this product, and they cannot know what it is if you do not properly market it to them. A successful brand awareness campaign can lead to increased sales of a particular product, in addition to the increased public awareness. A product that nobody knows about isn’t successful.
The current world is one where people tend to lean towards a product they know as opposed to one they do not know. In order to ensure your product or service reaches this stage, you must first understand your target audience. Next, you must utilise social media, digital marketing, and public relations to spread the word and thus launch a successful brand awareness campaign.
Understanding your target audience
For a successful brand awareness campaign, you must first research and understand your target audience. You must position your product or service in a favourable light so that it will be used or purchased. Therefore, you must take the time to understand your target audience’s spending habits, as well as their day-to-day lifestyle. Your product will not be of interest to everyone, so you must have a clear understanding as to whom it is you will be marketing your product to. This knowledge will help you with your additional marketing initiatives, namely your social media, digital and PR initiatives.
Social media marketing
People live on social media. While this does not apply to everyone in every single country, many now own a phone and have a profile, whether it is on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or another up and coming social media platform. As a result of this, your brand needs a social media presence. A strong social media presence will not happen instantaneously; it will require time and money. You will want to curate your content and copy to be visually appealing, as well as easy to read.
There is a long list of steps in the world of social media marketing, as you will need to curate the voice you wish your brand to have, understand each social media platform and how your strategy will vary and so on. However, given the widespread appeal of social media, you would be missing out if you do not push your brand to maintain a strong social presence.
Digital marketing
Digital marketing is yet another beneficial tactic for your brand awareness campaign. Digital marketing refers to the advertising you will be performing on various digital channels, including social media, search engines, online websites and so on. Your digital marketing tactics are linked to social media, given you will be using those platforms when running campaigns. One example is a pay-per-click as you will be marketing your product on an ad that accrues costs whenever you click it.
This technique is used to promote brand awareness because having ads placed on digital platforms will increase the number of people that are familiar with that particular product. While you use digital marketing tactics to grow your brand awareness, it is also important to do competitive analysis to see what strategy competitors might be using. It will involve research on your part, but even using online tools such as PPC Competitor Research Tools, to see the different pay-per-click tools you can use for your brand awareness campaign, will benefit you.
Public relations
Public relations tactics will help your brand stand out and gain beneficial coverage that will continue to grow your brand awareness. Public relations professionals will spread the word about your particular brand by getting media outlets, or even online influencers, to write and post about your particular product or service. This will, in turn, help your brand gain creditability, especially if the influencer or media reaches a large audience. Unlike digital marketing tactics, public relations coverage is free and is about building relationships.
Your product will be widely recognised in the market due to your brand awareness marketing initiatives. This can, in turn, affect the profitability of a product or service, so it is paramount, especially when it is new on the market. As a new business, you must put money behind marketing initiatives, so that people can know about you and your product. There are a vast number of new products that make their way to the market every single day, so you need to make sure you will stand out.
You must understand your target audience, and use social, digital and PR initiatives to your advantage. When you find that something, in particular, is not working, you must revisit the plan and try again. If your pay per click ad is not performing, it could be that you have not optimised it properly and you must go back to the drawing board. The point is, you must employ the appropriate marketing initiatives for a successful campaign.