A fully integrated marketing strategy should engage all three phases of the marketing funnel:
Awareness - Engagement - Conversion
The marketing ecosystem's shift to digital has led many marketing tacticians to focus obsessively on engagement or conversions, while discounting the first and most critical step of the customer journey: A thoughtful and effective approach to building Brand Awareness. Brand Awareness is the foundation of an effective marketing strategy. Without it, engagement and conversion efforts tend to dry up. Brand Awareness will consistently drive down funnel activity by generating a continuous flow of prospective customers into your pipeline.
The mounting pressure on Business Owners, CEOs, CFOs, and Marketing decision-makers to demonstrate ROI is driving more focus and ad dollars to generating down-funnel conversions. The drive to measure the impact of every dollar often leads to “improved” short-term results at the expense of a sustainable long-term marketing strategy that’s fully integrated.
How can a marketing professional balance the need to measure the true value of awareness with the growing intensity to drive revenue in the short term? Measurable success can still be produced within a brand awareness campaign. Successfully tracking the ROI from your Brand Awareness Campaign requires following 4 Basic Steps.
1. Identify Your Customer - Identifying your target customer profile(s) is a critical first step. Analyzing your website traffic, CRM data, and surveying customers and employees will help build demographic profile(s) for your target customers.
2. Reach Your Customer - After identifying your target audience segments, you need a plan to reach them and start building your brand. Your options to reach your target audience likely fall into three buckets, two of which have major limitations:
- Traditional Media – This method allows for widespread reach but can be expensive and inconsistent. Billboards and radio can only reach a narrow subset of the population, with little to no guarantees you’ll reach your target customers.
- Social Media – Here, you are only going to have an effect on users actively engaged in the platform or your brand. Social media reporting tools are also often inaccurate and overly complicated.
- Digital Media - Digital Media can take the guesswork out of your marketing! 100% of the population is on the Internet and 80% are streaming Television. You control exactly who sees your ads, thereby maximizing the impact of every dollar you invest.
3. Develop the Message - Knowing who to reach and how to reach them are critical to brand awareness success, but a poorly crafted message or ineffective creative will doom your results. High-quality, eye-catching creative that connects with your different audience segments is critical to maximizing your campaign and making every impression work.
4. Test & React - A major key to a campaign’s success is its ability to reach your target audience with a relevant, emotionally appealing message at the right time for that customer. The digital landscape offers granular tracking capabilities that allow you to observe your customer journey from the first impression through the sale. At Awarity, our brand awareness campaigns allow you to track campaign performance daily across audiences, by targeting tactic, and by location. Metrics like impressions, unique reach, and indirect website traffic can help you to paint a full picture of your campaign’s impact on your business without requiring conversions. With the ability to adjust strategy throughout the course of your campaign, we encourage you test and react repeatedly as you fine-tune your messaging and examine your customer journey from beginning to end.
A thoughtful and effective awareness campaign is the foundation of a fully integrated marketing strategy. Following four simple steps will allow you to develop deeper insights into your customer journey and allow you to optimize your message and approach, while demonstrating the ROI numbers that your C-Suite Leadership demands.
