Improve your brand awareness in 2013

In the minds of many business owners and even some salespeople, any sales or marketing campaign that doesn’t immediately end with a sale being closed is a waste of time. Many sales KPIs (key performance indicators) still tend to measure the number of deals closed per contact, rather than lasting relationships built with clients.

Now, in an ideal world, potential consumers would see your advertisement, hear your sales spiel, and immediately drop everything to buy your product at that very moment. Unfortunately, unless you wear a pastel blue suit with a bow-tie and live in a 1950s high pressure sales fantasy land, the world no longer spins on that axis.

Now the good news. Aside from winning immediate sales and closing deals, your sales and marketing efforts are also important in building “brand awareness”, which is the extent to which your potential customers are familiar with your brand and your products.

Brand awareness matters because – outside scams, major fraud cases, phone companies and politicians – no one buys goods and services from companies they don’t know exist. Your potential consumer might not decide to buy this very moment, but the very fact your company exists is filed away in the back of their memory for future reference if you build your brand awareness.

For example, every time you watch the cricket and see an ad for a multinational fast food chain, you don’t immediately go out and buy a piece of lukewarm salt-encrusted fried poultry in a bucket. Yet all those ads build your awareness of their brand, which in turn makes a fried chicken snack a consideration the next time your kids start pestering.

Now, here’s the crucial question: Do your potential consumers know that your business exists?

Especially if you’ve recently launched your business, consumers who might potentially be interested in your business might not even know that you or your product offering exists. The way you get on the radar of these potential consumers is by building brand awareness.

So make building brand awareness a key part of your marketing strategy in 2013.

Similarly, when you assess the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns during 2013 or create KPIs, don’t just look at whether deals get closed directly – also look at whether your campaigns are effective in building brand awareness.

Get it done – in 2013!