Some things make you want to buy when you see a familiar logo or color combination. Here’s how to measure and increase brand awareness.
What is brand awareness
Why Measure Brand Awareness
Levels of recognition
Metrics for measuring awareness
How to Increase Brand Awareness
Expert advice
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What is brand awareness
Table of Contents
The level of knowledge of the target audience about the brand is recognition, an indicator of how well people are familiar with the company or product, that is, the brand. High recognition is one of the most important criteria for the work of a brand manager and the success of a company in the market from a marketing point of view, as well as an indicator that the brand is known to a large number of people from the target audience (TA).
It is important to distinguish between the recognition of mass and niche brands. The former have a larger audience from the start: 80% recognition for a mass brand gives an audience of tens of millions of customers, and for a niche brand – at best tens of thousands.
The Brand Manager course will help you learn how to create brands and how to increase brand awareness using digital tools. Students practice their skills and work on a real project that can be added to their portfolio. The course experts are practicing specialists with experience in Yandex, Sberbank, Carlsberg, Coca-Cola, Mars and Gazprombank .
Why Measure Brand Awareness
Collecting brand awareness data is necessary to have an idea of the company’s place in the market. Analysis of the results of such studies affects:
● Demand generation
Awareness is the first stage of the sales funnel : if potential buyers already know or have heard something about the brand, they are more likely to form an intention to buy the product. They are drawn into the funnel, then return, make repeat purchases – they become part of the loyal customer base.
● Increasing the brand’s market share
Market share is an indicator of the success of the marketing strategy that a company follows to promote a brand on the market. To correctly calculate the market share, it is necessary to proceed from the price category and segment. For example, the market share of the Balenciaga brand should be calculated in the premium segment, and not in the “clothing and accessories” category.
● Forming consumer trust
When faced with a large number of different products, the consumer chooses familiar options. These are the brands that he has tried and liked, or that he has heard a lot about. These products are familiar to the buyer by taste, color and appearance, so he develops trust in the company itself, its products, their quality and properties. Trust turns into a desire to make a purchase, and this often happens automatically.
● Speed of decision
making by a potential buyer. High recognition helps reduce the time spent in the store and reduce the stress level due to the need to make a choice.
● Distinction from competitors
For example, the jewelry brand “Lines of Love” uses red in its corporate style, which is associated with romance, and wedding and holiday paraphernalia is perceived as the brand’s “trick” and works to increase recognition. The buyer creates an associative series: “Lines of Love” is for romantics. Such visual and verbal attributes help the brand stand out from its competitors.
● Customer loyalty
Without increasing brand awareness, it is impossible to retain customers in the loyal base. Ambassadors are influencers who are ready to buy and recommend the brand’s products. They test new products and services to increase the attention of a wide range of consumers to the brand.
Levels of recognition
There are three main levels of brand recognition:
1. Top of Mind
(from English: the top of the mind) — brands, usually 1-5, that the consumer knows well and remembers first. For example, car brands — BMW and Toyota, carbonated drinks — Coca-Cola and Pepsi, clothing brands — H&M, Zara.
2. Spontaneous recognition
These are brands, on average 5-7, that the consumer can recall without a hint. For example, in addition to the beverage brands listed in the previous paragraph, a resident of the Samara region can name “Dobry”, Fanta, Sprite, “Volzhanka” and “Rameno”.
3. Brand recognition with a hint
brands that the buyer can identify among unfamiliar options. The reference point is a recognizable attribute, such as the brand’s color scheme or logo. Among drinks, this could be Limon Fresh, Funky Monkey, Flash, “Russkiy Dar”, Fantola, Rich, Evervess and Freshbar.
Metrics for measuring awareness
The main way to measure the level of recognition is to conduct a “brand health tracking” analysis. This is the name given to a large marketing study that includes studying the levels of recognition, compliance with the company’s stated values, and target audience loyalty.
When budgets are limited, the following tools are used to measure brand awareness:
● Brand Lift research
It is often used by agencies when launching advertising campaigns for clients. The essence of the study is that the brand’s target audience is divided into two halves: one is shown the advertisement, and the other is not. And the difference in brand awareness is compared. As a rule, brand awareness increases sharply among those who have seen the advertisement, hence the name of the method.
● Surveys and questionnaires of buyers
on social networks and special sites;
● Checking the frequency of search queries
for example, using Google Trends or Yandex.Wordstat. For the Sokolov brand, we see 101,884 queries, and for ExJe – only 548; it is obvious that recognition of a mass brand is much higher than that of a niche brand;
● Analysis of the number and tonality of mentions
in the media and social networks;
● Tracking and working with reviews
including on sites like IRecommend.ru , Flamp , Otzovik ;
● Analysis of advertising indicators
impressions, reach and responses. Here they measure the number of impressions, CTR (click-through rate) – clickability indicator, and CR (Conversion Rate) – conversion rate, the number of people who performed the target action. You can check the metrics in the seller’s personal account on marketplaces, in advertising accounts or using special counters, for example, Google Analytics ;
● Tracking the traffic and engagement indicators
of visitors to the company’s resources – websites, social media accounts, landing pages, Telegram channels – allows you to calculate the number of people who are in the brand’s information field. Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics are used for measurement.
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How to Increase Brand Awareness
There are several ways to increase consumer awareness and promote brand awareness:
✅ Launch an advertising campaign
using wide-reaching channels: TV, radio, outdoor advertising, media. The goal of the campaign is to introduce the brand and convey its message to as many people as possible. The result will depend on the frequency of exposure.
✅ Use influence marketing
That is, advertise the product through opinion leaders and bloggers with an audience that coincides with the target audience of the company or product. Influencers are associated with success, so their recommendations are especially important. For example, thanks to the coincidence of the target audience of the Sokolov brand and the audience of the singer Lolita, more than 30 million women — potential buyers — watched commercials with her participation.
✅ Apply brand activation
that is, create points of contact with your potential audience. These can be festivals, meetings, holidays and other themed events. For example, the energy drink brand Red Bull sponsors sports festivals and holds extreme competitions itself. Including Red Bull Rampage and Red Bull Formation – the largest events in the world of freeride mountain biking. Another example of brand activation is the dating app “Sunlight Dating”, launched by the jewelry brand Sunlight. The app also helps increase sales due to the points that can be earned when using it.
✅ Create a collaboration
Team up with a well-known brand from another category to attract or exchange audiences and increase user loyalty. For example, in the summer of 2022, the online grocery delivery service Samokat teamed up with the Uppsala Circus project. The buyer was offered to order groceries, then watch a video with the artists and try to repeat their tricks using products from the store’s assortment, for example, bite a marshmallow in flight or make a chocolate bar float in the air. To stimulate sales, buyers were additionally given “circus” promo codes for a discount at Samokat.
✅ Organize a challenge
or any other small-scale activity where people come into contact with the brand and thus become closer to it. For example, the sports store “Kant” regularly holds running challenges: users need to run a certain distance or “draw” words and accessories related to running using special applications like Strava, and then post the workout on a social network with a hashtag. Participants receive gifts and points that can be spent on purchases in the chain’s stores, and the brand gets explosive content on social networks and a loyal audience.
✅ Increase your media presence
This can be either brand-initiated promotional materials or third-party publications: news, reports from events. PR is a tool that also affects brand recognition.
✅ Participate in sponsorship or charity activities
Such events help to increase not only recognition, but also the value of the brand in the eyes of the audience. For example, VTB Bank holds a seasonal campaign “Let’s put together a briefcase together”: funds collected through the bank’s clients go to the purchase of stationery for orphans by September 1. The campaign helps the bank tell about itself and form a positive image.
✅ Work on search engine optimization
This can be done using SEO keys. The first positions in the search results are an important factor in remembering, consolidating and subsequently recognizing the brand. The user perceives such brands as familiar to a large number of people and trustworthy.
✅ Formulate brand values
so that they correspond to the values of the target audience. For example, the ExJe brand produces “extreme” jewelry that is especially appreciated by lovers of an active lifestyle: earrings in the form of mountains, pendants with climbing equipment. Thematic jewelry allows you to immediately recognize a kindred spirit and feel on the same wavelength with him, even if the meeting takes place in a formal setting.
