Conquering The Marketing Funnel: Awareness

Marketing campaigns are multifaceted initiatives that seek to accomplish a specific goal. Creating a brand awareness strategy welcomes customers into the initial steps of a marketing funnel, and helps develop a consumer base. This campaign builds a foundation for growth that will aid in the success of future campaigns – so it’s essential for every business. 

An awareness campaign can educate consumers about your company and the products and services they never knew they needed. Companies can also benefit from using an awareness campaign for new product or service launches, special events, and more. Success in this can take your brand from unknown to unforgettable. Emphasize who the brand is, what makes it great, and why customers should engage. Keep reading to become A.W.A.R.E of the elements of the awareness campaign.

Attention

To ensure the success of your marketing campaign, you need to grab people’s attention (obviously). This can be done in various ways within the graphics and messaging. It starts with establishing your brand identity. Create a brand voice, colours, and logo to make you stand out. Having signature colours can increase your brand’s recognition by 80%, so it is important to have unique but consistent colour choices. This is also where you open the door to ideas that are so crazy they just might work. 

For example, the sparkling water company Bubly gained international attention by making Michael Bublé their spokesperson. As a famous figure, attention was drawn from the striking resemblance between Bublé and the Bubly brand. You don’t need a famous person to be memorable, but you will need something that makes consumers double-take.

Word-of-Mouth

Even in the digital world, word-of-mouth marketing is very powerful and can lead to twice as many sales as paid advertising. This is where the authenticity and the importance of online reviews collide. Loyal customers can become advocates for your business by sharing their experiences with friends and family. The referral process can be beneficial no matter what product or service you offer. You want to be the brand that people refer to when they say, “I know a guy.” We’ll talk about this more in later blogs on creating loyalty and advocacy campaigns. The era of social media also makes this method easier as people turn to user-generated content to discover new brands. Awareness through social media engagement should be prioritized, as 79% of people say that user-generated content. Not only is this a free marketing method, but a well-executed awareness campaign should be shareable online to maximize the influence and reach.

Audience

Any successful campaign starts with a defined target audience. By understanding who your customers are, you can better position your brand. For example, if you release a new sports drink, putting up posters at an art studio would not be as beneficial as putting them at a hockey arena. As great as it is to be known by all, you can maximize your return on investment by creating AWARE-ness for those most likely to engage. Critically assess who you are targeting to ensure your campaign sparks their interest. 

Offer value in your awareness campaign to differentiate you from the competition and fill a consumer need in the market. Using the sports drink example, you may offer free bottles at a sporting event. The consumer-focused mindset will provide direction to where awareness is needed most.

Recognition

A successful awareness campaign leads to brand recognition. This catch-all element considers the importance of familiarity in consumer buying decisions. In a perfect world, your logo should trigger brand recall. If you imagine golden arches, you’ll know exactly what brand I’m referring to. 

Brand recognition is correlated with trust and perceived value. Perception of your brand can be a competitive advantage, as 54% of people will purchase products from brands they know of. Awareness campaigns are intended to build precisely that – AWAREness. Instead of getting down to all the reasons a customer should engage with your business, simply work on becoming recognizable.

Emotion

Effective marketing campaigns consider the psychological need for an emotional response to cultivate attention. By pulling on customers’ heartstrings and making them laugh, you can resonate with customers on a deeper level. A connection between the customer and the campaign is then formed. This is an essential consideration, as consumers primarily rely on emotion instead of information when evaluating a brand. 

Take it a step further and use colour or music theory to emphasize the emotional response you want to elicit from your marketing campaign. An example of this is the heart-warming Christmas Miracle campaign from WestJet, where they did “real-time gift giving” for their passengers on Christmas Eve. Although seemingly unrelated to promoting their airline, the emotionally-driven campaign led to a viral video and an 86% increase in sales compared to the previous year. Consumers are real people with real emotions, so we encourage you to remember that when creating your campaign.

Take your AWARE-ness campaign to the next level by considering these key elements and the components of a successful marketing campaign.

From branding to execution, our team of marketers has the know-how to make your awareness campaign successful! Let’s chat about how we can help with marketing needs.