The Role of Brand Awareness In Business
Brand awareness plays a very crucial role in consumer’s purchasing decision making.
In this article, we'll talk more about the role of brand awareness in business. After reading this article you will have a clear understanding about brand awareness and its benefits. But first, let me welcome you to Growit MC family, here we share valuable content that will help you grow your business or brand in so many different ways. If you are new here, we welcome you to the family, please scroll down to the footer and kindly sign up with your email address to receive more content like this one straight to your mailbox.
In this article you will get to know how brand awareness works, what benefits it has for your business/brand, and what role it plays in consumer's purchasing decision making. Let's dive in!
What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness is the ability of customers to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions or circumstances. Brand awareness plays a very crucial role in consumer’s purchasing decision making. Studies show that consumers purchase products that they recall or recognize. Here is an example, let’s assume you are approached by two sales representative from two different insurance companies to offer you a life cover policy. You are only familiar with only one of these insurance companies and you know nothing about the other one. Would you prefer buying from the one you are familiar with or the one you do not even recognise? The answer will probably be considering buying from the one you recognise. Here is why.
People do not usually buy products from brands they do not recognise or know nothing about, which is why many businesses invest in digital marketing to promote their brand, services, or products in order for consumers to be familiar with, recall, and recognise them. A strong brand can be a key determiner of brand success because it can lead to sustainable competitive advantages and long-term value. Consumers normally purchase one of the top three brands in their minds. This is known as 'top-of-mind awareness'.
Top-of-mind awareness
Top-of- mind awareness is more often defined as the “most recalled” or “most remembered” brand names. A brand that enjoys the fruits of top-of-mind awareness is generally considered as a genuine purchase option. Top-of-mind awareness plays a huge role and benefits the brand when consumers need to make a quick choice between competing brands in the same category.
Businesses and brands use digital marketing to increase the probability of products, services, or brands to be more accepted by the market. When a brand becomes well established and attains its desired awareness levels, marketers may need to maintain brand awareness to ensure steady sales and stable market share. In this case, marketers/business es apply digital marketing techniques such as the inbound marketing - search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing (SMM), and content marketing to attract new customers and retain the existing ones. They normally achieve this through following the inbound marketing process/steps which are; to ‘attract, convert, close, and delight’.
I discuss more about these steps in "The Power Of Digital Marketing" eBook.
Brand awareness is made up of two components. Namely, brand recall and brand recognition.
Brand recall
Brand recall is also known as unaided recall. This type of brand awareness component is the ability of the customers to correctly generate a brand from memory without a delay when they come across a product category. When prompted by a product category, consumers can recall only a small set of brands, usually around 3 to 5 brand names. Research shows that the amount of brands that consumers can recall is affected by product factors such as brand usage factors, brand loyalty, and brand knowledge.
Brand recognition
Brand recognition, also known as aided recall. This refers to the ability of the consumers to recognize or recall the brand, this does not necessarily mean that the consumers must identify or know the brand name. It means consumers can confirm that they know, have seen or heard of a given product or brand before. Aided recall plays an important role in brand growth and performance, and it can influence the purchasing decision making of consumers.
It is evident that brand awareness is vital for business growth and performance. Just because brand awareness it isn’t a metric that can be perfectly determined doesn’t mean it doesn’t carry value. Brand awareness is incredibly important for business success and overall marketing goals Therefore, businesses should not take its role for granted. But without good marketing strategies put in place, brand cannot reach its brand awareness desired levels.
Marketing strategies such as the inbound marketing (SEO, SEM, SMM, and content marketing) can be applied in order to reach the desired brand awareness levels. Brand awareness alone is not enough and does not constitute or guarantee consumer purchase, thus, proper strategies to influence and convert consumers to buying customers should be put in place.
Due to changes in the media landscape and consumer media habits, an increasing amount of consumer’s attention is devoted to digital communications, from computers, tablets, to cell phones. Now businesses need to engage with consumers using digital platforms such as social media, websites, and blogs.
In today's world, consumers can search for information in the internet using different range of devices. They can absolutely search for anything they want and get answers instantly. Here is an example, if a consumer comes across a product that he/she is not familiar with, they can access the internet and search for information regarding that particular product. If the product is not visible online, some consumers may not purchase the product because they cannot trust the product due to its lack of online presence. In cases like this, businesses use the inbound marketing technique to create awareness and attract new customers
With a strong brand, your business or product can be able to compete with its competitors. But to be able to do so, you may need a professional and highly skilled staff to carry out the work. Having experts like Growit MC in your corner can help and assist you in your efforts to enable your business or brand reach its full potential.
If you would like to consume more content like this one, please feel free to get yourself a free copy of THE POWER OF DIGITAL MARKETING eBook.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Asiphile Qulu is the Founder and CEO at Growit Marketing Consultants. He is a Digital Marketer and an author of the two books, "The Power Of Digital Marketing" and "A Success Mindset"
He holds a National Diploma in Public Management which he obtained at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.
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