In order to remain competitive in today’s marketplace, businesses must focus on future-oriented strategies that will drive brand awareness and customer acquisition. By leveraging new technologies and implementing innovative marketing techniques, companies can stay ahead of the curve and attract more consumers.
Nielsen’s global annual marketing report 2022 leverages survey responses of marketers across a variety of industries whose focus pertains to media, technology, and measurement strategies for building brand awareness and acquiring new customers. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the most effective methods and recommendations from Nielsen that marketers can adopt for increasing ROI and customer base and achieving brand success in the years to come.
Driving brand awareness has become more important
Marketers are increasing their spending across social media and online channels to raise brand awareness and acquire new as consumers’ media behaviors evolve.
As more people are lately shopping online and are less regular at physical stores, the need for raising brand equity has become more important.
Online retailers have an infinite shelf – this makes it increasingly difficult for single brands to stand out on their own when compared to all other options available through online browsing or marketing campaigns targeted towards customers’ needs. In today’s marketplace where consumers can find just about anything at any hour imaginable thanks in part.
How to drive brand equity?
As per Nielsen, marketing accounts for 10%-35% of a brand’s equity.
Social media has been the most bankable channel for global marketers’ for raising brand awareness. Reports say that 64% of marketers find social media as the most effective paid channel. The gaining popularity of social media channels like Instagram and TikTok is prompting global marketers to boost their social media budgets more than any other channel over the next year.
Expected change in social media spend by marketers
Nielsen’s survey reports that there was a lesser amount of confidence among marketers in the effectiveness of traditional channels when compared to digital ones.
According to a survey by Nielsen, the majority of customers (85%) tend to purchase those brands that they had already tried in the past and 22% of consumers were worried or not confident about trying a new brand.
The best brands are always looking for ways to better understand their consumers. Their goal is not only about the bottom line, but also about building long-term relationships with customers that will last them through all stages of business growth and success!
Nielsen’s recommendations for marketers for building brand awareness include:
- Marketers should align their strategies and tactics with those KPIs that are achievable through established tactics.
- By staying aware of changing consumer behavior and connecting with them through the channels most used by consumers, marketers can do great in preserving the brand’s health.
- Leverage digital channels to reach out to the maximum number of consumers.
Improving ROI across paid channels
Technology is changing the way we do business and engage with consumers, but marketers need to take a holistic approach that considers both channel-based interactions as well as platform-specific look-ins.
Confidence in measuring the ROI across paid channels
According to Nielsen, only 54% of global marketers are confident in their ability to measure full-funnel ROI, while 73% of marketers globally are satisfied with their measurement tools. Martech providers can help brands that lack the ROI-proving confidence in these preferred channels and offer suggestions for improving their execution and results.
If marketers want to address the need for short-term sales and seed long-term growth, they should run effectiveness studies for both short- and long-term ROI. To achieve this, they can run marketing mix models (MMMs) to optimize channel mix for short term-sales. Then they can use a second analysis to optimize channel mix for awareness or other upper-funnel metrics. By this, brands can create a more balanced plan that supports both their short-term needs and their long-term goals.
Nielsen recommends the following for marketers for measurement confidence:
- Marketers should select and leverage those solutions that deliver their specific needs.
- Having insight into customer behavior data will allow them to stay agile and adaptive to changes and accordingly formulate strategies.
- By running MMM studies for short- and long-term ROI, marketers can optimize plans for short-term sales and seed long-term growth.
Understanding customer behavior for formulating future strategies
Digital engagement continues to rise, and every interaction creates a step in the consumer journey. Advertisers should take time to understand their consumers and how they engage so that the right messages reach them in any channel where engagement may happen! High-quality, deterministically sourced data will help marketers improve and optimize their campaigns and engagements.
Nielsen reports that 69% of marketers believe that first-party data is important for their strategies and campaigns, and about 72% believe that they have access to quality data that can maximize the impact of their media budgets.
Although marketers agree about the importance of quality data, the majority of them struggle with varying aspects of their data strategies. Nielsen reports that globally, 36% of marketers find data access, identity resolution, and deriving actionable insights from data very difficult.
Analyzing person-based identifiers is growing increasingly critical for meaningful, relevant consumer engagements.
According to studies by Nielsen, behavioral data based on actions people take delivers substantially higher marketing performance than contextual signals alone. Combining the power of both can drive the highest ROI while delivering scale.
Below are Nielsen’s recommendations for marketers for developing future-forward data strategies:
- Get to know more about consumers by sourcing relevant data about changing consumer behavior and demands.
- Effectively engage with consumers on next-gen platforms and combine behavioral and contextual data to drive effective campaigns.
- As consumers want personalized experiences, by identifying touchpoints that lead to desired outcomes, marketers will be able to generate more ROI.
How to make your brand your promise and raise brand awareness
A report by Nielsen highlights that 52.3% of U.S. consumers purchase from brands that support causes they care about and more than 36% of consumers here expect the brands they buy to support social causes. While there is a desire for purpose-driven brands, 55% of consumers do not believe that brands are contributing to real progress.
Influencer marketing has become increasingly popular in recent years as it has been able to develop connections and understanding with social media users. Marketers can use this to their advantage by partnering up with influencers who share similar values for promoting brands that way.
Marketers can follow a few tips from Nielsen to make their brands a promise to consumers.
- By echoing what consumers are looking for in the brands they buy, marketers can enable brands to foster more meaningful, long-term relationships with their customers.
- Leverage the power of social media influencers to develop stronger interpersonal relationships with consumers, as the influencers can be viewed as a trustworthy marketing channel among consumers.
- Collaborate with publishers and ad tech providers to ensure that messaging is meeting consumer demands, appearing in the places where people expect it.
Conclusion: Consumer behavior is constantly evolving, and brands need to be aware of the latest digital media platforms to stay ahead of the curve. By analyzing consumer behavior, you can formulate future strategies for your brand that will help build trust and long-term relationships with consumers. Increasing brand awareness and customer acquisition should be one of your main goals when it comes to marketing. Marketers can consider implementing the recommendations in this article into their marketing strategies to increase brand awareness and customer acquisition rates.
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