Discover the Power of Awareness
If you’re new to the world of digital marketing, you may have heard the word “awareness” thrown around and wondered just exactly what that means. While it may be a new term for many digital marketers, it’s an important step in the funnel that carries huge amounts of value for your brand and messaging.
To put it briefly, the awareness stage is where you first introduce your brand to your potential customers, creating an association between your audience and the product that you happen to be offering them. It’s where the seed of every sale is sewn and a smart marketer knows it is not to be overlooked.
You see, brand awareness is more than just a step in the funnel – it’s the foundation for the connection you create with your audience. When it’s done right, you will forge an immediate and lasting connection with your customers. What does a successful awareness stage look like? Find out below.
Create A Positive Connection With Data
If you’re looking to enhance your brand awareness, remember that it’s not always about pounding people over the head with your product. In fact, the awareness stage is arguably where finesse pays off the most. By mixing a smart creative strategy with a savvy data set you’ll find yourself creating ads that resonate meaningfully with your target audience.
The world of politics are a great example of the importance of targeting in the awareness stage. How many times a day do you think about your congressional representative? If you’re like most people, it might not be that often. That’s the challenge Jerry McNerney faced when he came to us to run a campaign advertising his bid for congressional reelection in 2018. For his awareness stage we ran ads that appealed to the audience’s interest in certain political issues. By focusing this stage entirely on key issues the voters care about and targeting to constituents proven to have an interest in these issues, we helped drive a positive connection between the voters and their representative. This left them primed and ready to be retargeted with action creative further down funnel, helping McNerney win his district handily in November.
Use Your Most Beautiful Creative
Awareness is all about first impressions, and nothing makes a better first impression than some beautiful brand imagery. When you’re targeting an awareness audience you want them to see your brand’s best side and that means beautiful product shots, clear and enticing messaging, and not going overboard with the detailed confidence factors or sales pitches - there’s plenty of time for those later!
For luxury real estate client 277 Fifth Avenue’s awareness stage, we run beautiful 300x600 ad units showcasing their creative studio’s gorgeous building renders as well as their bespoke interiors. Their creative leaves the audience wanting to know more with concise and enticing headlines such as ‘Own Fifth Avenue’. If a customer clicks on these we will move them down the funnel into another stage known as Consideration where these details will be filled out, but for now the audience has been made aware of the building, their interest thoroughly piqued.
Final Thoughts
Awareness may not be where the conversions happen, but it’s where every sale begins. More than simply the first touch point in a customer’s funnel journey, it’s an invaluable element to successful campaigns and consumer perception. The more effort you put into researching, understanding, and growing this part of the process, the more likely your campaign will increase connection and boost revenue.