27 June 2023
Brand vs. Demand Part 1: Building Awareness and Driving Growth
by AJ Bellarosa
If you work in marketing, you are probably used to discussing the complexity of your role and the strategies and tactics required for success. Most people would agree that marketing is essential to increase customer acquisition, retention, and lifetime value, but the journey to generating demand is multi-faceted. Business leaders often misunderstand the nuances, particularly when key performance indicators for brand-building initiatives are not directly tied to revenue. While brand awareness and demand generation are often discussed in silos, business leaders must maintain a strong relationship between them to optimize return on marketing investment.
CMOs and CEOs can achieve greater success by discussing the difference between these two aspects of marketing and reviewing performance metrics to illustrate the business impact of each discipline. In Part 1 of my series on Brand vs. Demand, I will discuss various options for building awareness and how to measure performance.
Building Brand Awareness
Although driving brand awareness can be characterized as a science, many intangibles are involved in measuring performance. It is the first step in attracting customers to your business and is crucial for startups and companies launching new brands and products. The primary goal of increasing brand awareness is to reach your target audience and familiarize them with unique aspects of your brand or product. The goal is to move your brand through the five levels of brand awareness, from no awareness to brand dominance. An effective brand awareness strategy leaves potential buyers with a lasting impression and makes them more likely to trust the brand when it offers solutions to their needs.
Here are some of the tactics I’ve used throughout my career to increase brand awareness and the associated key performance indicators.
Social Media Marketing: Social media platforms have become a dominant force in generating brand awareness.
According to Datareportal's 2023 Global Digital Overview, there were 4.76 billion social media users worldwide. With such a vast audience, it's no wonder that brands are leveraging social media to increase reach and recognition. The primary key performance indicators for social channels are your followers and engagement metrics such as likes, comments, or shares. How are those KPIs attributed to revenue? It’s complicated, but building your brand on social media makes it easy for you to stay top of mind with your target so when they are ready to buy, they think of you first. Marketing investments in social campaigns may not directly impact revenue initially, but generating awareness requires repetition and consistent messaging to create interest, consideration, and demand. One of the best ways to generate awareness on social is user-generated content. Shared media creates greater reach, recognition, and recall and is one way to create virality on a limited budget.
Content Marketing: Fresh content that captures people's attention empowers brands to engage their target audience and improve both acquisition and retention.
HubSpot's 2022 State of Marketing report revealed that 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing, with 24% planning to increase their investment in the coming year. Even though B2B marketers often create eBooks and whitepapers to drive conversion further down the funnel, many other forms of content are great for building brand awareness. Memes, carousels, animated GIFs, infographics, and short-form videos are just a few examples of content that B2B and B2C marketers can use to improve brand awareness and engagement. Consistently sharing relevant and engaging content enables brands to educate their audience and keep them engaged by staying relevant. Creating content and sharing it helps brands earn “top of mind” status and stay there until customers are ready to buy. The key performance indicators that matter the most are likes, comments, and shares. As I mentioned previously, shared media is very effective in social media, but you need content for your brand to catch fire.
"There's no clear-cut distinction between demand generation and brand building. Each piece of content you release contributes to your brand's reputation, and if executed effectively, it can boost demand for your product or service," stated Aaron Magness, CMO of Thistle. "Concentrating solely on one at the expense of the other likely undermines both efforts."
Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing enables businesses to collaborate with individuals with a significant following for increased brand exposure.
Influencer marketing has seen significant growth in recent years, with Instagram being a popular platform for collaborations. According to the State of Influencer Marketing report, the influencer marketing industry was estimated to be worth $21.1 billion in 2023, demonstrating its influence on brand awareness. B2B and B2C marketers can use influencers to promote services, solutions, and products to their followers. This is a great way to accelerate your brand through the five steps of awareness. A great case study to reference is the Fyre Festival in 2017. Even though the event itself was a complete disaster, it was a master class in influencer marketing. They invested approximately $5.2 million in building brand awareness through influencers and made over $26 million in revenue. 5X return on marketing investment is impressive for the inaugural launch of a music festival that no one had ever heard of. Reach, website visits, and search trends are three important metrics for measuring influence marketing campaigns’ performance.
Field Marketing: The pandemic made field marketing impossible, but now brands are reintegrating this important brand-building activity into marketing budgets and operations.
Verified Market Research, a leading global research and consulting firm, expects the global field marketing industry to bring in a whopping $2.194 trillion by 2028, which is a considerable lift from the $887 billion the market generated in 2020. Face-to-face communication with your target audience is one of the most effective methods for building brand awareness. Trust is difficult to establish online. It’s unlikely that a customer who never sees your face will have the same connection to you as one whose hand you shake frequently. Experiencing a brand live creates a connection that is impossible to achieve through another approach. In the long run, face-to-face connections foster a feeling of community and camaraderie that strengthens client relationships and improves the customer experience. It is not all about verbal communication; body language is also crucial. Inviting consumers to experience your brand and learn more about it in the field sets the stage for generating interest, consideration, and demand. Although many metrics measure field marketing performance, website visits, and search trends are two to monitor before, during, and after an event.
Marketers have options for investing in brand awareness that move brands from having no awareness to being dominant in the marketplace. I’ve highlighted four options, but there are many more, including PR and experiential marketing. The next step is to use your brand dominance to generate interest, consideration, and demand. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I discuss demand generation and its important relationship with building brands.