Here’s a question many salespeople ask each other at the water cooler: “How can anyone buy from us if they don’t know we exist?”
Most salespeople are taught that sales is a numbers game. You pick up the phone and call as many people as possible to get appointments. And if you’re not getting sales and meeting your quota, you call more people because that will lead to more appointments. According to a study by the Keller Research Center at Baylor University, one percent of cold calls yield appointments. From those appointments, sales may or may not be made. How can you increase the odds?
When salespeople talk about encountering prospects who have no idea about their products or services, what they’re really saying is this: If only we had brand awareness, our sales percentage would increase.
Sales are driven by getting prospects in the door, on the phone, or to your website.It should come as no surprise that in a recent HubSpot survey, generating traffic and leads is the top marketing challenge for companies.
The F-Word
Brand awareness is the audience’s familiarity with your product or service, as well as how trusted your reputation is in their mind. In a recent survey, 71 percent of consumers said it’s important they are familiar with a brand before they buy.
What’s in a name? Everything.
Brand awareness isn’t just how familiar the audience is with a company, it’s also how a company’s reputation is perceived. In today’s ever-connected marketplace, where a prospect is only a click away, a good or bad review becomes a permanent record and an Instagram influencer can disrupt an entire industry.
Brand awareness has become the foundation of lead-generation. Simply put, companies today need brand awareness if they want to achieve growth (sales). Look at the top companies in the world.They’re getting their brand talked about (familiarity) throughout the marketplace and building upon their reputations by disseminating content through key channels.
Today, brand awareness is the elixir all sales departments need. Dominated by companies with resources to staff large public relations (PR) and marketing teams, brand awareness is often regarded as an unachievable and expensive goal by companies without a PR or marketing department. This isn’t true.
Small and medium-sized businesses can build awareness with content designed to generate more website traffic and convert more leads.
The pen is mightier than the sword
As you develop content, understand its purpose. Its purpose isn’t to sell, but to build trust, demonstrate expertise, and to educate the prospect during the attract, engage, nurture and convert stages of the buyer’s journey.
Public relations (PR) and marketing work in tandem to build brand awareness, but it’s important to know that they’re not the same. PR is a strategy designed to grow a company’s recognition by creating coverage for them where the target audience is most likely looking.
Marketing, on the other hand, is a strategy geared more around lead generation. For the small to medium-size business trying to build brand awareness, here are some surefire tactics of each that you can start today.
Public Relations
Direct company PR outreach:
Get on the phones (becoming more uncommon but still worth a try) and send out emails “pitching” your product/service to bloggers, influencers and editors. It’s easy but effective. Here’s a tip sheet on pitching.
- Press releases: Press releases are a great way to announce something newsworthy about your company, get media coverage and noticed by your target audience. You can announce a variety of company news, such as new products or services, winning an award, new hires, attending an event or forming a new partnership.
- Media alerts: Like a press release but typically much shorter because you are just informing publications (the media) that your company is doing something special such as attending a conference.
- Media follow-up: Most editors are busy and it’s important to follow-up with them by email and or a phone call. The good news is that most publications will publish your press releases and media alerts so long as they follow typical journalism guidelines. So don’t be shy and reach out to the editors!
Third-party references:
- Case studies and testimonials: Your product or service is the best, but how do you educate your audience? Use case studies. These tell a story focused on the customer’s pain point and conclude with a positive solution from your product or service.
Marketing
Content development distribution:
- Blogs: You know what it is, the question is, why blog? Simple – it helps get your business seen. Helpful advice builds a good reputation and credibility. Blogs drive traffic to your website – and it’s another way to engage with your audience and ultimately, increase conversion rates.
- Bylined articles: A bylined article is the go-to content used by PR and marketing firms for establishing an executive as a thought leader. They are not sales tools and should not be “pushing” your product or service. Rather, they demonstrate expertise and understanding of your potential customers pain points by showing your unique perspective on an industry topic and building credibility.
- White papers: These problem-solving guides are a great way to educate your audience about challenges or best practices within your industry and build trust. Additionally, they are usually downloaded from an email or website, so this is an opportunity to capture leads and prospect information.
Social media:
The best way to engage with your audience is through social media. Never before have businesses and prospects been able to engage with their audience throughout the sales cycle. If you’re not doing social media, you’re taking away your audience’s voice, missing out on critical feedback as well as not utilizing a great platform to disseminate your content and build brand awareness as well as your reputation.
Keep in mind that if you run out of ink you can also attend, exhibit or even speak at industry events. Staying active within your industry also builds brand awareness.
If you write it, they will come.
Start writing and maybe even post an informative video or Tweet out your content, announcing to the world, “Hey, look at us!” Just keep in mind that it takes time to build brand awareness. Be persistent and consistent. This is a long-term venture. Building an online presence and gaining exposure in trade publications take time.
Growing your blog and social media followers doesn’t happen overnight. It takes five to seven impressions for the audience to remember you, so blogging twice a year isn’t going to cut it. Nor is writing one press release or tweeting only on holidays. You must write often. Ultimately, building brand awareness is a marathon, not a sprint.
Brand awareness is achievable and affordable. There are several ways to build awareness using the same tools used by big company PR and marketing teams.You can start today with writing purposed content that educates and helps the audience. By doing so, not only will you see more traffic to your website, more leads generated and converted into sales, but you’ll see happy, smiling salespeople calling friendly and familiar faces.