As headmark’s Digital Director, I work closely with clients to help them drive real growth. It’s important that they understand just why raising brand awareness is so fundamental to a customer’s journey to conversion, as well as how to harness YouTube and other channels for impactful messaging.
Customers should be taken on a trip through a digital marketing funnel, which flows intuitively through four stages: Awareness, Interest, Consideration and Conversion.
Many business owners and marketers get bogged down with lower funnel activity, without investing properly in the upper funnel, i.e. brand awareness.
Many conversions – lead generation, phone calls, newsletter sign ups, sales – depend on raising awareness for your brand. The advertising channels themselves often need that brand awareness component at the onset to fully learn and optimise to lower funnel activity. You can then nurture interest and use remarketing at the ‘point of consideration’ to drive conversion.
Think of it as laying a tantalising trail of breadcrumbs that will lead customers to commit.
Patience is often required. Depending on the product, results may come over a longer period of time. Branding campaigns – that upper part of the funnel – don’t always have immediate impact on lower funnel activity, as you may be talking to customers with zero knowledge of the brand, or customers that are at the very early stages of their customer journey.
Building brand awareness ensures that you have a healthy flow of potential customers through the funnel and stand out against competitors at the point of conversion.
How does YouTube help build brand awareness?
YouTube is a powerful channel for driving brand awareness. It’s a great way to hit people with a memorable message and tap into video trends. Unlike other channels, your ad is almost always in full view for the user, with audio on. This means you have full attention and the power of visual and audio to land your brand message. For more on this, check out our creative director’s tips on how to create powerful YouTube ads that pack a punch.
Google (who own YouTube) offers powerful targeting capabilities so that you can reach your desired audience. Beyond the standard demographics, you can target users based on their passions and interests, what they are currently in the market for, their income level/household status/marital status/etc., plus life events such as buying a house or having a baby. This means that YouTube can be optimised for all stages of the funnel, offering an impactful channel to nurture your potential customers through their journey with your brand. As well, being a part of the Google suite means that YouTube can complement your advertising activity across other channels like Search, including tapping into shared audiences.
A full-funnel strategy cleverly tailors messages from awareness to conversion.
Plunging headfirst into the interest and consideration stages without building awareness means that you can be ineffective and lose those potential customers to your competitors. You need to lay the breadcrumbs. After all, a first date is very different from a third or fourth!
Digital channels such as YouTube and Facebook/Instagram let you optimise for all points in the funnel, so you can run ad sequencing and set up ads to talk differently to customers at different points on their journey.
Focusing on brand awareness across 2019 helped us drive a 13% increase in calls for Tyres and More, which is our primary KPI. This lower-funnel result was driven by our full-funnel strategy throughout the year. Tyres and mechanical servicing is considered a “grudge” purchase that does not happen regularly, so we built up awareness with those in our potential audience who weren’t ready to convert yet. That way, when they were, they would think of and choose Tyres & More.
Get in touch today to find out more about a full-funnel strategy, including how we can help raise brand awareness, create brilliant YouTube ads and ultimately drive real growth for your business.
BY ADRIEN JARVIS
