Top 5 Secret Techniques to Improve Advertising for Brand Awareness – tbpmx featuring David Anderson
Advertising! All it takes is a glossy campaign, virtual or in print, that slathers a company’s name everywhere, and results are inevitable, right?
Advertising! All it takes is a glossy campaign, virtual or in print, that slathers a company’s name everywhere, and results are inevitable, right?
Well, it’s true, some results are inevitable — but they very well may not be the results that you want. And even when the business sees positive results after advertising, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how effective the advertising was.
As Derek Thompson wrote for The Atlantic, “Some ads persuade us to buy. Some ads tell us to buy something we were already going to buy, anyway. It’s awfully hard to figure out which is which.”
The Key To Brand Growth
A significant factor that plays into the effectiveness of advertising, however, is brand awareness.
Building awareness of a brand means more than just creating an ad that works in the moment. It means crafting a brand personality that is ubiquitous. Consider something that will continue to come to a consumer’s mind even when they aren’t having advertising pushed on them.
But just how can a marketer build brand awareness through advertising techniques?
Let’s take a look!
Technique One – Partner With Influencers For Reviews And Content
We live in a time where “influencer” is a full-time job for many people, whether on a large scale or a small one.
For every celebrity who sells a mention on their Instagram for $100,000 or more, there are smaller-scale influencers. They have a dedicated base of anywhere from a thousand to fifty thousand followers. These followers are intrigued by what the influencer is buying, using, and enjoying.
As of this year, Kylie Jenner is the biggest earner in terms of influencer posting. She takes in more than a million dollars per sponsored post. But some influencers start at a more reasonable level — such as $50.
Regardless of the marketing budget for any given brand, partnering with influencers is a valid and valuable avenue. This works both to reach more consumers and sway them to give new products a try.
This is marketing without resorting to the old-fashioned way.
How To Do It
It is, of course, ethical for the influencer to state that they are partnering with the brand. The best results come when the influencer is able to craft their own review for the product, doing so in their own particular style.
That’s what holds the interest of the followers, and what makes the most impact on their buying habits.
Along with reviews, influencers can be asked to create content centered around the brand.
Again, these aren’t really “traditional” advertisements, but using an existing influencer personality reaches consumers in a more personal way. It identifies the brand, and the products, with this influencer, who is already liked by their followers.
Influencers And Increased Engagement
As an example, I’m marketing a graphic tool, and my influencer of choice is an independent designer. He’d be a great influencer to engage and teach my audience to learn how to design a social media logo. His video is educational. It shows the audience how the tool can be used.
It’s also influential since the audience trusts the designer’s judgment.
And the response can be enormous. According to marketing firm MediaHub, for example, many of their clients that used micro-influencers saw a 50% increase in engagement.
And almost half of the polled consumers claim a dependency on influencer endorsement before they make a decision to purchase a product.
Of course, working with influencers is a type of marketing and branding, so it’s important that the influencers you choose fit in with the overall brand.
They should have compatible goals and values, and they should reach the audience that the brand is targeting.
Technique Two – Target Your Audience On Social Media
At the beginning of 2020, statistics indicated that 3.8 billion people were active on social media — that’s almost 50% of the population of the world!
Is there really any bigger audience to be reached?
So, obviously, advertising through social media is a great way to boost brand awareness. But that doesn’t mean that you should just shotgun your marketing across all available platforms and hope that something sticks.
In fact, just as not all social media platforms operate exactly the same, not all social media users are identical, either.
It might be tempting to assume that social media users are all the “younger generation.” You may believe your brand, designed to appeal to older ones, doesn’t need to invest in social media marketing.
But that would be a mistake.
Social Media And Statistics
Social media platforms appeal to different users — and a discerning marketer will look for the common user that is most likely to fit into the target demographic.
Women are more likely to use Facebook than men, but men are slightly more likely to use LinkedIn than women.
Seniors 65 and over are more likely to use Facebook than other platforms.
Around 67% of the 18-29 age bracket are on Instagram.
And there are plenty more statistics where those came from.
So what’s the takeaway here?
Pinpoint your advertising based on the likelihood that your target market will see it. If your audience is over 50, don’t expect to reach them via ads on Instagram.
Don’t take the shotgun approach — it’s less effective than conserving your resources and spending them where they will count the most.
Technique Three – Promote A Referral/Reward Program
Getting free stuff, credit towards services or other rewards is still one of the great motivators behind consumer action. The same is true whether the action is opting for a free trial or sending an email to a friend, inviting them to sign up for a program.
This is also not a “traditional,” in your face advertising technique, but perceived benefit is a strong motivational force. And it works even better when the customer sees that it helps out both their friend and themselves.
A Good Example
For example, if you run a “give some, get some,” program such as ThredUp did earlier this year, to boost up your brand. Your customers will help you to make more customers, as well as spending more themselves.
ThredUp asked its existing customers to send a referral link to their friends. When the friend made their first purchase, ThredUp gave them ten dollars. They then gave ten dollars to the referee towards their next purchase, as well.
It was an excellent, cost-effective way to promote the brand via word of mouth and reward loyal customers at the same time. It’s hard to get more effective with brand awareness than that.
Technique Four – Create Remarketing Campaigns
Remarketing is the process of targeting ads to those who have already looked at your site, whether they have taken action there or not.
If you have a visitor who clicks away from the site without making a purchase, remarketing will pop up in their Facebook, Google searches, and other areas to remind them about their visit.
It’s an effective way to ensure that your brand is gone, but never forgotten.
How It Works
Remarketing works well for brands because it is actually another opportunity to brand the consciousness of the audience.
In paid ads for Google search, you get only a good placement and the website link along with a “sponsored content” disclaimer. Remarketing allows a canvas for upscaled marketing campaigns, including content that can be honed for the website visitor.
After all, they visited the site, so you can assume that there is some interest — remarketing gives you an opportunity to capitalize on that.
It’s also an excellent overall branding opportunity. You can create compelling, educational, or entertaining ad content, and make sure to include the brand logo.
All of this goes a long way to building brand awareness and increasing memorability.
Technique Five – Tell The Story Of The Brand
By far, one of the most overlooked areas to help improve advertising efforts to boost brand awareness is story-telling.
Marketing tends to boil down to quick increments, using only a few words, because those are seen as the most effective. People don’t have time for much more.
On the other hand, once you’ve got their attention, the best way to build awareness of and appreciation for a brand is to craft something that engages their emotions. And the way to do that is to tell the brand’s story.
Storytelling draws attention to the uniqueness of the brand, telling the audience what makes you, you. It also boost personal branding as it gives more a personality and history to the brand.
Not every marketing opportunity is appropriate for storytelling.
But once you are able to draw your audience in, telling them the story of how the brand came to be is a fabulous way to ensure that they will think about it long after the initial marketing effort has been completed.
Author Bio
David Anderson is a business graduate with a marketing major. He specializes in communication design and has helped many brands achieve their goals in marketing communication. Now he writes for freelance clients on topics related to brand design, visual communication, and marketing.