Developing Brand Awareness Strategies
By Louis Corso, President USuggestit, Inc.
Definition: Brand awareness is the degree of consumer awareness of a brand and its related products. Creating brand awareness is one of the key steps in promoting and marketing a product. Brand awareness is particularly important when launching new products and services. 1 Investopedia
Developing Brand Awareness
Developing brand awareness is a key element to success when bringing new products or services to market. Success will be measured in sales, but as you acquire customers, success will be measured in keeping them while gaining new customers. In today’s market you need an omni-channel strategy that is weighted towards digital because access to information is at arm’s length in the form of a smart phone. It is important to show that you have already thought of how to engage customers during their process of discovery. Developing a digital brand presence with customer engagement strategies has to be at the tip of the spear.
Out of all the things that change over time, related to consumers’ buying habits, nothing can move more quickly than food consumption habits. Food is fashion and tastes can change in a minute. Keeping in constant contact with your customer is a key element to success. Just think about all the products on store shelves today that were not there just a year ago. Most product development has not come out of big brands, but from small, new businesses or start-ups. These new brands have set the pace for product development. Established brands need to play catch-up and new brands have to differentiate themselves from their competition. By keeping in touch with customers and developing new products to meet their changing dietary habits, brands can align their products, marketing message and customer experiences to meet consumers’ evolving desires. Utilizing digital mediums is an essential component to customer engagement and delivering that message.
Start the Conversation
As a small or mid-sized brand, you need to keep pace with competition. Use your digital channels and social media as a mechanism for customer engagement and interaction. Open channels of communication and give your customer the ability to interact and communicate with the least amount of friction. Respond, reward, incentify and be prepared to create influencers and brand ambassadors. Prepare for constant communication and reassessing your product development strategy. It is important for your customers to know that they have been heard. The response is a key element in the customer/brand communication loop. Responding to customers on social media alone increases their chances to purchase by almost 50% 2. Keep them in mind when responding to reward e.g. coupons or incentives and keep them informed i.e. when you announce new products, services, sales, etc. to give your loyal customers advanced notice. You can make these vocal communicators, your influencers and brand advocates and create word-of-mouth strategies that can ripple through social media.
USuggestit, Inc. has developed a platform designed to help brands engage and interact with consumers to generate brand awareness and to capture their evolving desires in real-time. Contact Louis Corso at Louis.corso@usuggestit.com Phone: 917-207-9916 in U.S.
Brands: suggestionlab.com
Consumers: usuggestit.com
References
1 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brandawareness.asp
2 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-examples/