Often times in business, we’re told to focus on running either a lead generation campaign or a brand awareness campaign. Here’s the thing – you should be doing both. For many SME’s, brand awareness might not be on their marketing radar, but in reality, they’re actually quite achievable and very beneficial and not too hard to develop. So much so that with a few tweaks to your campaigns, you’ll see how you can maximise your influence on your target market.
For reference, a Lead Generation campaign is one where you work to first identify, and then cultivate, potential customers for your products or services; whereas Brand Awareness campaigns work to ensure that your target market is familiar with the qualities and feel your brand.
Your prospects will trust you, the more they see you
Trust will organically build with your market the more regularly they see your name, logo, and message appear in front of them. While this can be done through a single medium, better results are usually obtained when using several different ones. As such, when a client asks me about doing a letterbox drop, I inform them right from the start that while they may see positive results from the initial drop, their highest conversion rate will normally be once they hit the same market the 3rd time.
This is due to the Mere Exposure Effect, which occurs when the recipient has built familiarity with your business because they have seen your logo and branding multiple times. We observe a similar effect in the formation of friendships, where familiarity builds over multiple points of contact.
Consistency in both branding and message
Maintaining uniformity amongst your design and colours will help reinforce your brand message across multiple campaigns: building familiarity that then leads to trust. This requires more than just your logo however: similar fonts, layouts, and elements will also help cement your business firmly in your customer’s mind.
Additionally, your corporate message can also be a powerful tool to help reinforce a brand. In addition to the design component, never underestimate how a talented copywriter can help to keep consistency with your message between advertising pieces.
Don’t just reward new clients, reward existing clients
It’s always incredibly disheartening to receive a piece of advertising material that offers a special discount or freebie for new clients, but nothing for existing clients (especially if I purchase from them!). Existing clients, who may have been with you for some time can become your biggest brand ambassadors, but only if you give them a chance.
By only rewarding new customers, you’ll leave a sour taste in existing customer’s mouths.
Be honest with your advertising and don’t over promise
It can be tempting to lure people in with false advertising (such as fake specials) and if I’m being honest, it may actually give a small temporary boost to sales. However, this tactic won’t build long term trust (and could potentially lead to lawsuits), loyalty and most importantly, repeat business.
On top of this, The ACCC aren’t the biggest fans of misleading advertising, so it’s probably best to avoid it all together.
Focus on what you can do for your customer
If you want consistently effective advertising, make sure that it creates (or makes aware of) a problem, and offers a solution to said problem. In doing so it shows your customers that you care about them, their problems, and that you are willing to show how you can fix it for them. When your customers see that you can provide solutions for even one or several of their problems, they’ll be more inclined to trust you to fix more of them.
Use testimonials
People, as a general rule, don’t like to be the first one to try something out; therefore, if they know someone else has already tried it and liked it, they’ll feel more comfortable about trying it themselves. Testimonials, especially the ones that include a real name, business name (if applicable) and location will help reinforce to your customers that others trust you and they can too.
In short, when launching a new marketing campaign it’s crucial that you try to simultaneously target multiple fronts, with repetitive elements across each component.
