Know-How Exchange : Branding

It's difficult to know what type of goal to set, because there are extenuating factors beyond your control (e.g., competitor's moves, industry factors) that will have an impact on these numbers. Furthermore, given your sales cycle, 2 years is a fairly short horizon. Given all of that, however, I do think there are two strategies you can begin to implement that can help drive awareness and purchase consideration.

First, it would be helpful to know whether the study you just conducted included information regarding the attributes with which your brand is currently associated, as well as those which are desired traits and benefits to the customers. You want these traits -- in terms of your messaging/branding, and what the customer desires -- to be consistent. Some additional information, gathered in a qualitative way with open-ended questions and verbatims from customers in their own language, can help you better position your brand so that it is more in line with customer needs. This, in turn, can help you to understand how to better be considered for ultimate purchase, once you are in the purchaser's consideration set.

In terms of building awareness, it would make sense to try some different strategies in the short term, and measure effectiveness of each. If you can do some split-testing, where you can conduct campaigns simultaneously without one influencing the other, that would be ideal. You'll also want to have controls (e.g., customers not exposed to the campaigns) so that you can see which strategy is having the most benefit. Before undertaking these campaigns, you'll want to gather some information, both internally and externally (e.g., some one-on-one interviews with customers, if possible) on what type of campaigns would be most attractive and feasible, so that you can begin to plan campaigns that have the greatest chance of success.

Once you begin to get some of these measurements, you'll have a better idea of some % increases that are both attainable and grounded in reality for your own business. When you get to that point, you'll also want to establish some scenarios for the results of these campaigns (e.g. good, better, best), so that you'll be able to predict realistic goals and objectives for the long-term.

Good luck! I think it's great that you've already taken the step of conducting this initial study.

Increasing brand awareness and intent to purchase is a worthwhile goal. And it will lead to the increased revenue that PhilGrisoliaMarketing thinks should be the only objective.

We've been involved in several marketing campaigns for B2B clients that are geared toward increasing brand awareness, and especially with long sales cycles (like 12 months or more) you will see the results of your efforts in time. It won't happen overnight.

A reasonable goal would be to increase awareness by 4-5 percentage points over 2 years, but that's going to be a function of a lot of factors (as jlevin suggests) ... not the least of which is how much you spend and how effective your branding message is.

The most important thing you can do is find a unique, benefit-oriented positioning that will really hit the nail on the head for your primary target audience ... and then communicate that positioning consistently and effectively to your target audience.

If you do that, you'll achieve the 4-5 point objective AND generate some incremental revenue. Just be sure you're measuring and tracking the marketing ROI so you don't lose money in the process! ;-)

Good luck.

I guess the big quesiton is why are you number 5 while the are other's ahead of you. There are really just a few major factors:

Quality of Product/Service
Customer Service
Value of Product/Service

I guess you need to find out what the perception is of these areas compared to your competitors. You then need to figure out what you are going to do to change both the reality and the perception of the problem areas.

People like high quality products for a good value from a company with good customer service.

Mike

The quality and quantity of your and the competitors investment will have a strong influence in achieving your results.

Possible is actually anything between 100 % growth and decline.