A common conversation I find myself engaged in lately revolves around where a brand’s marketing strategy should focus: awareness or conversion. Understanding the balance between them and when to focus on which one can have a significant impact on your bottom line. For sales professionals, it is particularly important to know how to collaborate with marketing teams so that both types of campaigns are effective in helping the organization drive growth.
For today’s blog post, I thought it might be timely to explore when to prioritize brand awareness versus conversion or vice versa, with examples of real-world tactics.
To level set, brand awareness is all about building recognition and, eventually, loyalty. Conversion is laser focused on the immediate sale.
Brand Awareness: Building Recognition and Loyalty
When to Focus on Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is all about making and keeping your name top-of-mind with potential customers. This is especially important for new products or when expanding into new markets. If customers don’t know who you are or what you stand for, how can you expect them to support you?
Marketing Tactics for Brand Awareness
Start by connecting with your target audience using marketing tactics that work:
- Video Campaigns: Video made up 82% of all internet traffic in 2022, compared to 73% before the pandemic,1 so utilizing it to grow awareness has become table stakes.
- Brand Storytelling Videos: Share videos that tell the story of your brand: how it started, its mission and the people behind it. It is critical to share your brand’s values and emotionally connect with your target audience. Storytelling videos are an especially effective way to accomplish this.
- Educational Videos: Create “behind-the-scenes” clips showcasing your brand or organization’s practices. These could be how you conserve energy, partner with farmers to put additional sustainability practices in place, only purchase animals that are raised using the best animal care practices or showcase an innovative production process that sets you apart from your competition. These “inside looks” into your company build trust and transparency.
- Social Media Ads: Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are ideal for reaching younger demographics if you are B2C focused. LinkedIn is a must if your focus is B2B. When developing posts or ads, be sure to highlight your brand’s personality and unique selling points and match your content to the tone and format of that particular platform.
- Sponsorships and Partnerships: Collaborate with chefs, influencers or events like food festivals to position your brand in front of the right partners who can help you promote your brand.
Conversion: Driving Immediate Action
When to Focus on Conversion
Conversion is all about pushing the customer (B2B or B2C) to act. This focus is paramount during seasonal promotions or when you have strong competition on price and/or convenience. If your focus is B2C, this is about getting your product into the consumer’s cart – whether that is in-store or online.
Marketing Tactics for Conversion
- Targeted Digital Ads: Use retargeting ads to reach customers who have already interacted with your website or social media content. These remind them of your products and nudge them toward purchasing.
- Email Campaigns: Personalized email campaigns with limited time offers like “20% off this weekend” are powerful drivers. (This is why your inbox filled up with Black Friday offers during Thanksgiving week!)
- Promotions: Partner with retailers for attention-grabbing displays or coupons that encourage customers to choose your product over competitors.
- Video Campaigns: Video also plays an important role in conversion.
- Product Demos: Show how your product is prepared and enjoyed, such as a quick recipe video featuring your premium steak cuts. Easy, step-by-step videos inspire customers to buy.
- Testimonial Videos: Highlight actual customers (consumers and/or chefs) sharing their positive experiences with your products. Testimonials add credibility and can be very persuasive.
Blending Awareness and Conversion
While awareness and conversion have distinct goals, they’re not mutually exclusive. Well-crafted campaigns can blend the two. This is often done using mouthwatering visuals to build brand recognition with a clear call to action at the end.
The key is to know what goal is most important and keep it the focus when designing the creative content the customer will see and in selecting the media placements and PR efforts that will get it seen.
Tips for the Sales Team:
- Understand Campaign Goals: When marketing’s focus is on brand awareness, don’t expect immediate sales. This is the time to support these efforts by sharing customer feedback and educating your customers about the benefit of long-term brand loyalty.
- Leverage Video Content: Share the marketing videos with your accounts to help them recognize the efforts your organization is going to in order to support their sales goals.
- Collaborate Closely: Provide insights on what promotions or content resonate best with your customers. This ensures that marketing efforts can stay aligned with sales realities.
Whether you’re introducing a new product or pushing seasonal deals, aligning sales efforts with the campaign’s focus ensures shared success.
This content originally appeared in Meatingplace
