Gaining brand awareness
by: Mark Arnold
Financial marketers love to talk about brands and branding. And for good reason — they spend enormous amounts of time, money, and energy crafting and executing the brands they represent. However, after all this time, money and energy is expended, what is the end result?
Many marketing experts will tell you brand awareness is the overall goal. But what are some practical, everyday ways financial marketers can help gain this invaluable brand awareness?
Following are a few tactical ideas financial marketers can put in place relatively quickly to help their already established brands gain increased awareness.
- Let your brand tell your story. People relate to stories better than lectures. Work to develop stories that pluck on the heartstrings as much as preach and promote. Consumers are more likely to buy into your brand if they have an emotional connection to it. Letting branding tell your story is one way to accomplish this.
- Continually reach out to consumers. Use every consumer interaction opportunity as a way to bolster your brand. This includes the more obvious face-to-face encounters — but also includes over the phone, via email and on social media channels. Every chance you have to interact with consumers is another opportunity for you to gain brand awareness.
- Be consistent in your branding. No matter how consumers view you, they should see and hear and feel the same things. Yes, this includes more workaday elements such as your logo, tagline and photos. It also digs deeper than that. Your brand should be consistently represented in how employees interact with consumers every day, in every way. Brand consistency is a powerful tool with which to reach consumers and gain increased awareness.
