Open letter: Don’t expect quick wins from paid ads if you haven’t been investing in brand awareness.
Are you a business owner, or a marketing manager struggling to see sales from your digital campaigns?
Maybe you feel like you are investing floods of money into paid campaigns to try and drive sales, yet you aren’t getting the conversion needed to justify the investment.
This is an opinion piece from our MD Lisa.
I see it all the time, brands coming to us wanting to know how quickly they can get sales and leads. And the first thing I always ask: “What other marketing has your brand had in play?”
Because the reality is, if your answer is “nothing” then we're starting from a zero base and it's going to take much longer to build momentum needed to deliver sales.
The economy is making lack of investment in brand even more of a problem
I get it - this is a tough economic climate where investing in a long-term brand strategy might not seem viable.
In my years of digital marketing experience, I have seen so many brands needing to boost sales quickly to keep themselves afloat. But unless that brand has established a strong presence and community, it is not feasible to expect immediate success through paid advertising.
So, what is a brand strategy?
A brand strategy is the blueprint to building your brand’s identity and awareness within your target audience, with the overarching goal of building a loyal community of repeat buyers and brand advocates.
It can be hard to measure the return on investment of brand strategies in the short term, leading marketers and business owners to prioritise performance marketing. Time for a reality check: very few people will buy without brand familiarity, so investing in a brand strategy is essential.
When building brand familiarity, you need to be visible to your audience. To increase visibility, run strategic ad campaigns aimed at attracting your ideal customer into your ecosystem. Enhance your social media presence and create tailored content that answers your target audiences' key concerns.
Once you have introduced your brand to your ideal customer, think about how you can offer value to their experience with your brand. This could be educating your audience, sharing transparent moments of your business or creating engaging and relatable content. Once you have built a loyal community, you can focus on turning customers into repeat buyers and brand advocates.
A perfect example of when it all goes wrong...
If you are an avid TikTok user, you may have seen the woman who took to TikTok, sharing frustration that her brand-new bikini business was not making sales.
The comments section was quickly filled with confusion - primarily because she had never introduced her brand. No one knew it existed, and yet she was expecting sales to flow!
This is a great reminder that you can’t expect customers to buy from you without knowing anything about your brand. While that was a new business, don’t think you are the exception if you have been around a while. Even established brands must build a social presence before expecting sales.
Combining brand & performance = the strategy to success
Tracksuit and TikTok’s Awareness Advantage study last year proved that when potential customers are familiar with your brand, they’re much more likely to purchase.
In other words, brand building is the foundation that allows your performance marketing to shine.
Interestingly, higher brand awareness always leads to better conversion rates, but the biggest leaps in improvement tend to happen as you build awareness up to about 37%. After that point, you'll still see improvements, just not as dramatically as before – thanks TikTok and Tracksuit for that little gem!.
If you are in marketing, facing the pressure of demonstrating marketing return on investment to your boss, this study validates that investing in the brand awareness piece helps your performance marketing achieve better results. (Here's a link to the download to keep up your sleeve for future reference)
So, should you cancel all your lead gen ads ASAP?
Not at all. But you should be aware that if you are relying on performance marketing without investing in brand marketing, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. A brand strategy isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity for growth.
Based on our experience, the time to start your marketing campaign was 6-12 months ago, don’t delay.
The good news? At Matter Agency, we specialise in long-term brand-building strategies. Chat to us about how we can drive consistent results for your business.