Increasing brand awareness in a digital age

Dave shares his insights on brand awareness, the customer journey, and finding your unique proposition.

3 minute read

The regional BNZ Connect event is bringing practical advice to small businesses all over the country. Led by Dave Hockly – founder and director of conversion agency Data Story – our Queenstown event focused on increasing brand awareness in a digital age.

Brand awareness is just the first step

The Data Story team see brand awareness as the beginning of a customer’s journey with your business. “We map our customer journeys into five stages,” says Dave. “Discovery, consideration, conversion, experience, and sharing.”

Here’s how that journey looks:

Discovery/awareness - those first few interactions with your brand.
Consideration/research - when the customer starts thinking about purchasing.
Conversion - when they convert and close the deal.
Experience - the final delivery of the service or product.
Sharing - the post-referral feedback loop.

While brand awareness is just one step in that journey, Dave explains that it’s an important one. “That first lever of brand awareness is fundamental,” he says. “Because if they don’t know about you, you’re not even in the conversation.

For brand awareness to work, all of the customer journey counts

Getting results isn’t a matter of doing one of these steps well every single stage needs to be optimised.

“For example, if your website doesn’t convert well, there’s no point driving awareness,” says Dave. “To be successful, you need to understand that full journey. If you’ve got a platform that converts, really dialed in lead generation and an on-point brand campaign. That’s when things really get humming.”

So before you start building brand awareness, put yourself in your customers’ shoes, and map out their journey with your business. Then analyse each and every step to make sure it’s road-bump free.

Brand awareness starts with a clear, unique proposition.

Before you launch into building brand awareness, it’s important to know exactly what your business is offering and what makes it stand out from its competitors. Without this groundwork, your advertising will very likely fall flat.

“Say you’re a fashion retailer,” says Dave. “What makes you unique? Are you cheaper, more stylish, or do you have better service? What’s your niche?”

He recommends starting by figuring out your unique proposition, then using it to narrow down your target. “Do that and you’ll be more likely to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time.”

Define your goals and measure your success.

Unlike sales and direct campaigns, brand awareness advertising often sees longer-term results. These results may include metrics such as brand love and loyalty, which can be abstract and difficult to measure.

That’s why it’s important to set clear and realistic campaign goals and use data and analytics to measure whether they’re met. “You need feedback,” says Dave. “Ways to have frequent conversations with customers, to understand what success looks like, and have a good analytics set-up.”

With these tools in place, you can better understand the long-term impact that brand awareness has on your business. And if you’re not sure where to start, you might like to consider bringing a specialist agency on board.

Based in Queenstown and Wellington, Data Story specialises in UX, analytics, and conversion. Using data and optimisation programmes, they convert leads into sales – getting great results for their clients.

Using social media to build brand engagement

Nick from Likeable Lab shares his approach to using social media to help build brand engagement, generate leads, and drive business results.

Creating strong partnerships to build brand awareness

Customer Success Manager, Severine Lenting, shares her insight on using partnerships to help build brand awareness - and brand advocates.

How customer centricity can give your growing business the edge

Being customer centric is a key factor when you’re looking to grow your business – whether that’s accessing capital or exporting overseas.

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