Terrisa Feng’s Post

Why Brand Awareness Sounds Like a Scam to #CFOs & What Can Marketing Do About It Brand awareness isn’t fluff—it’s the foundation for sustainable growth. Yet for many CEOs and CFOs, it feels like an ambiguous expense with no clear tie to revenue. Here’s why this perception exists—and what you can do to change it. -> Firstly, Why Brand Awareness Matters *Buying Happens When They’re Ready, Not When We Are Most of your audience isn’t in-market all the time. Awareness ensures your brand is remembered when they are. **Conversions Take Time In B2B, sales cycles are long and complex. A consistent brand presence builds trust and accelerates decision-making once prospects are ready to engage. ***Today’s Brand Is Tomorrow’s Demand A strong brand fuels referrals, organic growth, and inbound opportunities, reducing reliance on advertising. Even advertising performs better for businesses that invest in brand-building. -> Why B2B Businesses Resist Brand Awareness ***Lack of Strategy Running brand awareness initiatives without a clear business strategy is ineffective. Many B2B companies don’t have a deep understanding of their markets and customers. Without thorough research and well-defined goals, branding efforts often fail to connect with business outcomes, making awareness seem like a vague exercise. ***Misplaced Expectations Brand awareness is often treated as a quick step toward conversion rather than a long-term business objective. When positioned as a goal, metrics like impressions, reach, or engagement often fail to demonstrate whether potential customers genuinely recognize the brand or feel connected to it. ***Perceived Lack of ROI Awareness campaigns can be expensive, and their impact is hard to directly tie to revenue. This makes them feel less valuable compared to performance-driven initiatives. -> How to Make Brand Awareness Exec-Friendly 1. Educate the Business Show how awareness fuels demand generation, improves sales efficiency, and supports revenue growth. Dive into your CRM to uncover concrete examples—such as leads generated from branded searches, opportunities influenced by awareness campaigns, or accounts that converted faster due to prior brand familiarity. 2. Position Awareness as a Business Objective Frame brand awareness as an essential goal, not just a step toward conversion. It’s a strategic investment that sustains the entire pipeline. 3. Focus on Relevant Metrics Track outcomes that matter: branded search growth, direct traffic, share of voice, and tailored metrics specific to your business and market. Awareness isn’t a one-time effort. It requires ongoing investment to ensure your brand stays top of mind throughout the buying cycle. If the first three points are addressed, consistent investment becomes easier to justify. Being considered at the right time is one of the toughest challenges in marketing—and in business as a whole. Yet, it’s precisely at this intersection where real growth takes root. #brandawareness

Demand generation is ultimately about building brand awareness more than creating demand. The narrative that we are the ones creating demand is somewhat incorrect. The truth is that, in general, the demand and need for your product must already exist within the buyer. Your job is to increase awareness of your solution and position it as the best option to satisfy that need. This process unfolds gradually, following what we call the "demand generation curve." This curve includes these 4 key stages: 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: The simplest form of brand awareness is when people start to recognize your logo, which comes from seeing it enough times that it sticks in their minds and leaves a lasting impression. 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: It's not enough for the audience to recognize your brand; they must also comprehend what you do and for whom. Effectively delivering your message is key to achieving this understanding. 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥: Seed your message enough, and you’ll eventually become top-of-mind solutions to the pain point of your target audience, otherwise known as the “consideration set.” Brands that got to this stage are the ones mostly receiving inbound demand in reliable volumes. 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: Building affinity over time positions your brand as the leader in the buyer's mind, providing a competitive edge in the market. Brand awareness can't be rushed or achieved with a quick email campaign. Instead of solely focusing on generating leads, prioritize nurturing your prospects through the stages of the demand generation curve. By aligning your demand generation strategies with the natural progression of brand awareness, you can make a significant and lasting impact on our audience, ultimately leading to growth and success for your organization.

Measuring your brand awareness. Measuring brand awareness is crucial for several reasons, the primary motive is to evaluate the effectiveness of your brand campaigns and to identify potential flaws in your marketing strategy. You want to build trust? Then brand awareness is the first step! Research shows that 46% of U.S. consumers are willing to pay more for trusted brands. Familiarity with your brand increases the likelihood of word-of-mouth referrals, which further enhances trust. Now lets talk about measuring your brand efforts. Tracking brand awareness can help pinpoint issues that may be affecting sales. For instance, if your brand is well-known but sales remain low, it could indicate a lack of consumer trust or overly high prices. Measuring brand awareness helps marketers identify these problems and adjust their strategies accordingly. To measure brand awareness effectively, several methods can be employed. Social listening tracks brand mentions and sentiment on social media, while monitoring online performance assesses website traffic and digital ad effectiveness. Brand surveys also can gauge familiarity and recall among consumers, and analyzing content performance reveals how engaging your material is, influencing brand visibility. By using these techniques, marketers can gather insights and metrics that guide their brand awareness efforts. Interested? you can read more by clicking on the link below #marketing #brandingawareness #businessstrategy https://lnkd.in/gK2YydYe

Brand awareness is crucial for B2B businesses looking to stand out. If your target audience doesn't know who you are, how can you expect them to choose your services? Here are some effective tips to enhance your brand visibility: 1. Identify your target audience clearly to tailor your messaging. 2. Leverage content marketing to provide value and showcase expertise. 3. Use social media platforms strategically to engage with potential clients. 4. Consider partnerships or collaborations to broaden your reach. By implementing these steps, you can create a strong presence and foster trust with your audience. Remember, building brand awareness isn't an overnight process—it's an ongoing commitment that reaps rewarding benefits over time. What strategies have you found effective in boosting your brand's visibility? Share your thoughts! https://lnkd.in/gANMQFkc

Picture this: You're seated in a bustling eatery, anticipating the arrival of a long-time friend. The air is filled with the melodies of 90's chart-toppers, mingled conversations from neighboring tables, the symphony of silverware against dishes, and the distant hum of city traffic. Amidst this cacophony, the moment your friend utters your name, their voice cuts through all other noises, reaching you with unmistakable clarity. In a similar vein, when your target market has a deep familiarity with your brand, they can effortlessly distinguish it from that of your competitors. To aid in achieving such recognition, we've compiled examples of B2B brand awareness strategies that could spark some creativity for your own efforts: https://gag.gl/90xPqr

Always wondered why brand awareness is always the first step in marketing? Let us break it down for you. Think of brand awareness as the foundation of your marketing strategy. You can't build anything without it. You've got to realize that people can't buy from you if they don't know you exist. It's as simple as that. Brand awareness is all about getting your name out there, making sure that when people think of your industry, your brand pops into their head. This platform is perfect for this because it's where the professionals hang out. You're not just throwing your name into a sea of cat videos and vacation photos. You're putting yourself in front of decision-makers, industry leaders – the exact people you want to reach. Here's the thing: business relationships are a lot like personal ones. People need to get to know you before they trust you, right? By focusing on brand awareness first, you're essentially introducing yourself. You're saying, "Hey, we're here, and this is what we're all about." Brand awareness isn't just about immediate sales. It's about planting seeds. Maybe someone isn't ready to buy right now, but they remember your brand when they are ready. That's powerful! Plus, every time you put out content or engage with others, you're not just reaching your direct connections. You're potentially reaching their networks too. It's like a snowball effect. Start small, and before you know it, you've got this huge ball of brand recognition rolling. Another reason brand awareness comes first? It sets the stage for everything else. Once people know who you are, then you can start diving into what you offer, how you're different, why they should choose you. But without that initial recognition, none of that other stuff lands. And here's a secret: brand awareness isn't just about customers. It's about talent, too. When you build a strong brand presence, you're not just attracting clients. You're attracting top-notch employees who want to work for a company they've heard of and respect. Brand awareness is always the first step because it's the key that unlocks everything else. It's how you get your foot in the door, how you start conversations, how you begin to build those crucial relationships that lead to business down the line. Think of it as laying the groundwork. You've got to start somewhere, and brand awareness? That's your starting line. From there, the race is on. Ready to put your brand on the map? Let's kickstart your LinkedIn presence and get people talking about you. Book a strategy session with us today! 👉 https://lnkd.in/dUxeHdg5

Measuring brand awareness—the extent to which your audience recognizes and recalls your brand—provides valuable insight into your marketing strategy’s effectiveness. In this article, Account Director Melanie Granuzzo covers how to measure brand awareness, why it matters, and the tactics and strategies to enhance it. Start building brand awareness today: https://hubs.ly/Q030Kc1c0

There's a narrative in B2B tech that brand awareness without demand generation results in stagnated growth, when decades of advertising data show the exact opposite. This narrative has come about as part of the demand creation movement, and I believe it has conflated bad brand marketing efforts with an inherent limitation of brand marketing that needs to be compensated by demand creation. Take this data from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising), which consistently shows that activation efforts (demand generation in B2B), while very efficient at near-term result generation, reach a point of plateau quickly, while also being only as effective as there is active spend. This is very representative of data we see in reports like the one HockeyStack released recently, showing that even the new demand gen motion suffers the same fate without support. Brand building, which is what brand awareness is in pursuit of, has the opposite effect. There is even evidence that brand building alone can show increasing gains, but it's much less efficient than when paired with activation efforts. Demand generation as a combo with effective brand marketing is a powerful force, resulting in long term sustainable growth. But, even the best demand generation efforts will never reach their real potential with ineffective brand building, and that fails those talented demand generation marketers. The narrative that brand awareness is an incomplete marketing effort - only getting people to know who you are but not showing why to choose you - is reflective only of a lack of training of brand marketing. In reality, brand awareness is an umbrella strategy covering everything from recognition to recall to preference. If it never pursues anything beyond basic recognition, then it's bad strategy and shouldn't result in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I truly believe that it's imperative that we as an industry start to recognize that we have marketing theory gaps, and in many ways we have failed to train B2B marketers on necessary marketing fundamentals. It's resulting in us trying to invent new concepts to solve problems that already have applicable answers, and it opens up the door to serious credibility risks when our concepts are challenged by decades of data and theory.

Brand awareness and lead generation are often viewed as distinct phases of a marketing strategy, but in reality, they are deeply interconnected. Together, they form the foundation of a holistic approach to driving business growth. Brand awareness is about creating a strong and memorable presence. It ensures your audience knows who you are, what you stand for, and why you’re different. This is where you build trust, credibility, and emotional connections, laying the groundwork for long-term loyalty. Lead generation, on the other hand, focuses on immediate action. It transforms awareness into measurable outcomes by capturing interest and guiding potential customers toward conversion. However, lead generation efforts are far more effective when paired with a strong brand presence that has already captured attention and built trust. The key to success lies in balancing these two elements: Start with Awareness: Use storytelling, consistent branding, and educational content to position your brand as a trusted authority in your field. Follow with Lead Generation: Leverage targeted campaigns like gated content, email marketing, or webinars to convert that recognition into action. Integrate Both Efforts: Ensure your lead generation efforts align with your brand's messaging and tone, reinforcing the trust and recognition you’ve already built. When executed strategically, this synergy creates a virtuous cycle: awareness fuels interest, and conversions further strengthen your brand’s credibility. By prioritizing both, businesses can achieve sustainable growth while building lasting relationships with their audience. How are you aligning brand awareness and lead generation in your strategy? What’s worked best for you?