Refocusing After a Failed Brand Awareness Campaign

You wrote compelling content. You optimized your paid advertising. You put budget behind it. However, your brand awareness campaign was classed as a failure. Having a brand awareness campaign fail can really knock your confidence and leave you feeling that maybe people just don't like your brand. Related: 7 things to consider before your next social media campaign The best thing to do in this scenario? Get straight back into the swing of things and launch another campaign—but this time, it'll be bigger and better than before. Here's how you can refocus after a failed brand awareness campaign. Learn from your mistakes First, remember everybody makes mistakes—the most important thing to do is to learn from them. Dig deep into the performance and analytics of your failed campaign. What can you see that may have contributed to it not working? There are lots of factors at play here, but for this article we'll focus on 3 main areas: The copy used throughout the campaign The audience you set up for your paid advertising The metrics you used to measure the campaign's success The best way to find any mistakes you may have made is to compile a document containing the copy used, settings for paid advertising, and the metrics recorded throughout. Once you have these ready, it's time to look at what you can change. Is your content tailored to the right people? You were pretty sure you wrote compelling content... but is that actually the case? It's time for a bit of self-reflection and honesty, which—while sometimes tough to swallow—is vital to the refocusing process. One of the easiest mistakes to make in brand awareness campaigns is tailoring the content towards current customers. In reality, you're targeting potential customers instead. [Click to tweet ] The people you're targeting likely have no idea who you are prior to seeing your ad. This is why the content has to be super compelling, either to draw them into visiting your site right away or ensuring that when they need a service or product like yours, you're at the front of their mind. The main things you need to include within the copy are: The unique selling points of your business—what makes you different to all of your competitors? How you can solve their problems—most consumers have some sort of problem (which is why they purchase services/products), so tell them how you can be the answer they're looking for. A convincing call to action—whether this is telling them to visit your site, sign up for your newsletter or take advantage of a limited time promotion or discount, tell people why they should act on their impulses now. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers. What would you want to read? What would convince you to use your own product or service? Marketers often forget to place themselves in the shoes of their target market and instead take a product-oriented approach. A recent Marketing Week article by Mark Ritson perfectly points this out in a compelling read that really gets you thinking. Are you targeting the correct people? Next, examine your target audience. Are you completely confident that you targeted the correct people? If your brand awareness campaign failed, then it's possible you performed for the wrong audience. Basing your target audience on your current customers seems like the place to start. They clearly love your brand, so people who share the same interests are your perfect target, right? Not necessarily. In most cases, the audience you want to target is going to be slightly different. Before your current customer base found you, they were high-intent users actively searching for an answer to their problems. In a brand awareness campaign, however, your audience isn't likely to be high-intent when they first see your ads. This is where you have to be creative; think about the types of people who may have pain points you can solve but don't quite know it yet. Think about the age range that's most likely to face these pain points soon. Are there any geographical areas more likely to need your help? Are there any interests people have that could likely lead to needing you? For example, if your brand specializes in decorating services, based on intent and life event options, you can target people who are moving soon or have recently moved. This would be more effective than simply targeting people who love decorating. Are you tracking success correctly? Finally, let's review how you measure your campaign's success. You could run a hugely beneficial campaign, but if you're focused on the wrong metrics, you may see it as a failure and not capitalize on it. There are so many metrics you can use to gauge the success of a campaign that it can be difficult to know exactly what you should be looking for. Success metrics should be chosen during the planning stage of your campaign, to give you a clear view of how the campaign should be structured and how you can get a sensible idea of the performance. When you sit down to decide these metrics, use SMART goals and objectives. Many of you have probably already heard this acronym, but just in case, it stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Setting your goals this way will help you get an in-depth understanding of which metrics to evaluate when measuring the campaign's success. And when it comes to brand awareness campaigns, success can be harder to measure. Focus on top-of-funnel metrics rather than sales or conversions. When it's over, don't stop reporting just because the initial boost of traffic and engagement has died down. Remember that these campaigns can continue to pay off with gradual increases over time. Now go and conquer brand awareness Refocusing after a failed brand awareness campaign will help you refine your efforts and improve the next time. Every brand is different, and these tips won't work for everyone, but they can be a great starting point. The most important thing to remember is not to give up. No risk means no reward, and without learning experiences like these, you can't grow. Learn from your mistakes, and let your failures act as motivation to achieve success. Onto the next one! When you're ready to jump back on the saddle, we'd love to be there for you. See how Lucidpress can streamline your online marketing.