Brand awareness: the importance of brand awareness in B2B businesses

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Brand awareness is a brand management tool (branding) that measures consumer recognition of a brand.

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Key takeaways from this article:
To create an aligned branding strategy, it is necessary to consider the brand's positioning , its tone of voice, its purpose and its visual identity.
In the B2B market , brand awareness is important to attract investment, increase sales and provide financial security for the company.
Digital presence and the production of relevant content are tools that generate a significant return on a company's brand awareness. To achieve this, a digital marketing strategy is essential.
Brand awareness requires constant maintenance of marketing strategies. Monitoring indicators is crucial for this purpose. Learn about the main marketing and sales KPIs in: Sales and Marketing Indicators: KPIs you should use
When you imagine the color red and cursive letters, what brand comes to mind?

You probably thought of Coca-Cola, right? That's brand awareness!

Brand awareness is what makes a brand gain authority in the market and be easily remembered by its audience.

In the B2C segment, we have many examples of brands that ended up appropriating the name of product categories, such as Gillette (razor blade), Bombril (steel sponge), Leite Ninho (powdered milk) and Catupiry (creamy cheese).

These brands are perpetuating their name in the market and are unlikely to be forgotten by consumers. In this way, their credibility remains solid in the market.

But what about B2B businesses? How important is brand awareness and how can you increase it to keep your company relevant?

That's what you'll understand in this article.

Read on to find out more!

What is brand awareness?
As we defined at the beginning, brand awareness refers to the recognition that the public has of a brand.

This recognition occurs for several reasons, but the main one is the connection that the customer has with the brand they consume. It is through this relationship that brands gain the trust of their customers and become their preference.

The brand awareness strategy involves a set of actions that aim to strengthen a brand, planned by a company's branding management .

Contrary to what you might think, brand awareness is far from being a simple marketing tactic to increase sales. To work on brand awareness, you need to consider the following aspects:

brand communication and tone of voice ;
positioning;
customer touchpoints;
digital presence;
visual identity.
Why invest in brand awareness?
When your audience easily recognizes your brand, you gain credibility in the market. Just think about your industry and the public will quickly remember your company.

Shall we do an exercise?

Think of a fast food brand. Now, think of a cell phone brand.

Do you see how, without much effort, we have become well-established names in the list of turkey cell phone numbers market? This is not only due to the products offered, but also due to the brand's personality and the connection it establishes with its consumers.

This can happen to your company if you put a brand awareness strategy into practice!

See below the biggest benefits of investing in brand awareness:

Investor attraction
Attracting investors to your business is essential, as they can give you the opportunity to put your ideas into action with financial resources that might otherwise take longer to obtain.

However, investors need to believe in your company and see great potential for return. In other words, if your brand does not have its own identity or a clear purpose, it will not be attractive enough to investors.

Increase in sales
In B2B sales , we know that decisions are made with high rationality. Decision makers consider several aspects of your company when closing a deal with it, and that is why a lot of research and meetings are necessary to make a final decision.

By having a strong and present brand, decision-makers perceive more credibility and trust in your company, which speeds up the purchasing decision process and helps attract more customers.

Recall the steps in the customer purchasing decision process:

The 6 stages of the purchasing decision process
More security in times of crisis
In turbulent times, a brand that is not consolidated runs the great risk of closing its doors. We saw this happen a lot during the new coronavirus pandemic.

Brand awareness is a way out of this because, in this strategy, customer loyalty is based on the connection they establish with the company, and not just on the product itself.

After all, products are replaceable and, if necessary, the customer can find more competitive prices and switch suppliers to retain costs.

However, when a customer identifies with a brand’s purpose, they won’t hesitate to make an effort to stay with it.

It is this loyalty that generates recurring revenue for your company; a key element in ensuring the financial health of your business.

5 Actions to Start Increasing Brand Awareness
Now that you know the importance of brand awareness, learn how to foster brand awareness among your audience and become increasingly relevant in your market. Follow our tips:

1. Have a clear purpose
Truth be told: without a purpose , your company is just another one on the market.

Apple, for example, was founded with a clear mission to be highly innovative and bold. To this day, its loyal customers still line up for miles to buy the brand's new products.

McDonald's has transformed the way we relate to fast food restaurants, hasn't it?

These changes only happened because the giants we mentioned have a very strong purpose, which guides all their strategies and the way they communicate with their customers. This is exactly why they remain so relevant to this day.

Learn more about the power of purpose and how to apply it to your company's management in this article: Golden Circle: the power of purpose

2. Develop a personality for your brand
Giving a brand an identity has become a serious matter. After all, it is the identity that represents the characteristics that you want to associate with your brand .

Who doesn't know Lu, from Magazine Luiza? This is the perfect example for this topic.

“Lu da Magalu” was (and still is) a huge success, as it connects customers with the company’s values. And it didn’t take long for us to meet other brand personalities, such as BIA, Bradesco’s virtual assistant, and Baianinho, from Casas Bahia.

Of course, you don’t need to create an avatar with artificial intelligence to personify your brand. However, some characteristics should be worked on in brand awareness, such as:

brand values;
company profile;
visual identity;
tone of voice;
attitudes.
By combining these attributes, you create a brand personality that can offer the right advice and products to the right customers, as well as communicate in a unique way. All of this is essential to creating a connection with the customer!

3. Know your target audience deeply
One of the most crucial pillars of brand awareness is communication .

All of our closest relationships are sustained through communication, and it would be no different between you and your customers.

This communication should be reflected in your marketing campaigns, customer service and sales approaches. All of these pillars should have aligned communication that conveys the essence of your brand, its purpose and your care for your customers.

To do this, you need to know exactly who you are talking to.

Some tools are essential for creating a more accurate customer profile, such as ICP and persona. Learn more about these marketing tools at:

What is a buyer persona and how will it help your sales process?
ICP: what it is, why it is important and 5 essential tips on how to define your company's ICP
4. Create original and emotional content
In the B2B universe, it sounds a bit contradictory to be emotional, doesn't it?

But at the end of the day, no matter how rational we are, our purchasing decision process ends up being governed by different types of emotions. There’s no way around it!

This is why emotional content is so memorable to us. In fact, 95% of our cognition process happens in the emotional and subconscious part of our brain.

In other words, consumers pay more attention to content that evokes emotional reactions such as admiration, compassion, amusement, nostalgia, surprise, and others.

Think about what your brand wants to convey and, most importantly, how you want to convey it. Customers need to be exposed to the emotional side of your brand for it to be remembered.

5. Invest in digital marketing
Did you know that 70% of the Brazilian population has access to the internet? Or that 93% of Brazilians do research on Google before buying?

It is no exaggeration to say that a digital presence is mandatory for a brand's authority and credibility.

Digital transformation has not only made companies more efficient, but has also enabled an absurd growth in consumer demand, as consumers now have a sea of ​​information to learn more about the companies they interact with.

This is why digital presence is important, especially on social media.

In this sense, producing relevant content is vital to boosting the company's notoriety. Content marketing is a key part of a B2B brand awareness strategy .

Video content, in particular, is a great way to keep your audience engaged. After all, videos are interactive and easily shared.

Remember: create content and videos that reflect your brand’s “face.” This way, your audience will become more engaged and closer to your company.

How to measure brand awareness?
This is a very difficult marketing metric to measure. After all, it involves many intangible aspects, such as the customer's perception of your brand, for example.

What is interesting to observe are the digital marketing indicators , such as the amount of content downloaded, comments, shares and the reach of other materials.

In addition, it is also necessary to conduct research with your active customer portfolio, through forms or interviews.

Convert these indicators into practical adjustments to your brand awareness strategy to increase your results and continue building a strong brand.

And here is another characteristic of brand awareness: it keeps moving . It will never be enough. To stay relevant and retain customers, you need to adapt to market changes and consumer behavior.