How to Increase Brand Awareness and Win People’s Love for 8 Months Share: DigitalMust Score Awaiting client review n/a Date Published 6 July 2022 Reading Time 8-Minute Read How to increase brand awareness for 8 months using reputation monitoring system, working with negative reviews, SEO, crowd marketing and forums. About the Client Our client is a large construction chemicals plant. In addition to production, the company is engaged in the restoration of architectural monuments and world heritage sites, so the reputation for the client is a significant intangible asset. The NDA does not allow to disclose the name of the company, but we will share the details of a successful project with pleasure. Project Features The target audience is amateurs and professionals in the field of woodworking, owners of wooden houses and summer cottages, mostly men aged 25-44. Objectives Increase brand awareness for 8 months, build a positive reputation in search results, set up tracking of negative mentions of the company on the Internet. Period: July 2011 – March 2022 Tools: Brand Analytics reputation monitoring system, working with negative reviews, SEO, guest posting, crowd marketing, threading on forums. Main Problems We conducted an analysis of the company’s reputational background and identified the main dissatisfaction, getting the following scene. The first obstacle to success is cost. Look at the shelves of stores, there are many options for paintwork materials at a price of 100-200 rubles/liter. Products of the same purpose with a price of 700-1500 rubles/liter are perceived by default as “expensive”, while the high quality of the products remains in the shadow. There is another obstacle – habits. Since the Soviet period, people have become accustomed to certain patterns of wood processing: 2 layers – primer + finish, color to varnish, etc. Professional tools have their own application technologies and do not forgive mistakes. These are the two main issues that have become a source of negativity on the Internet. So we set the following tasks: to work out the negative (analyze the cases, explain the consequences of technology violations), turn “expensive” into “high-quality” and create a positive information field at the TOP of search engine results. Solution We have divided the project into 5 tasks, the solution of which is described below. It is worth saying that the maintenance of social networks remained completely on the client’s side. Monitoring Mentions We connected monitoring of brand mentions in Brand Analytics on the first day of work. Automatic systems do not always accurately determine the tone, so the reports were reviewed manually. This allowed us to identify the negative and work it out quickly. The main task of working out was not a refutation, but assistance in solving the problem, transforming it into a positive, where it is possible. Search SERP To form a positive information field in the visible area of search engines, we have chosen sources that are in the TOP-30 of the search results. At the same time, the resources were divided into 2 completely different camps, in the first of which there were trust reviews, in the second – powerful construction forums. Forums The meaning of working on forums is in direct contact with the target audience and it can be carried out in 2 directions. The first is to create an official account, open a branded branch and working with users on behalf of the brand (answering questions, posting, advertising). The second involves the creation of ordinary user accounts and guerrilla work on the placement of native advertising (crowd marketing). The first is easy and mostly paid. The second is free and exciting but risky. The emphasis in the discussions was on the quality of materials, we also turned the attention of the target audience from the price per liter to the price per square, which, due to the low cost of funds, it was on the bottom of the segment occupied by the customer. The fight against “habits” was in almost every discussion – we shared application technologies, backing them up with photographs of the results. Working on forums is fundamentally different from working out the negative. In the case of negativity, you can ask questions using a standard script, but forums require a professional specialist (which we have), or we recommend giving this part to the client for at home work. Gradually, we were overgrown with brand advocates who themselves retorted everything “expensive” with photos of their results and stories about quality. Using the Brand Analytics “Most Popular Messages” section, we monitored the development of discussions that caused the highest engagement of the audience in the reporting period, and posted messages on similar topics on other resources. Reviews The meaning of the work on the placement of reviews is to increase brand confidence. According to the Anketologist information resource, 93% of people read reviews and 67% can change their purchase decision based on them. So you can imagine the financial loss of a business due to negativity. At the same time, 89% of respondents write negative reviews. This is because a positive experience when making a purchase is taken for granted and rarely leads a person to write a review. From what it turns out that the chances of a brand in a positive information field are approximately 1 to 10. The strategy of encouraging customers with discounts and bonuses for writing a positive review always remains on the side of the customer, we can only recommend this practice. For our part, we have decided to create reviews based on answers to key queries and place them on all review sites in the visible area of the consumer. Articles There are several meanings to writing and posting articles. One of them is the content of the search results, so the materials were created with the help of SEO specialists who selected semantics for each article and formed a technical task with key queries. This approach gives a slow but steady result – as long as the request remains relevant, the articles work. And here’s a quick but temporary result — guest posting on top sites. This increases brand awareness and builds expertise. We agreed with the pumped construction portals to post articles on Yandex Zen and blogs, so we received up to 20 thousand views with 83% of readings on average. The articles were created on behalf of business professionals and contained valuable tips, life hacks and unique ways to solve popular problems. About Love Unfortunately, people’s love can only be imitated by laudatory odes, but not won. Therefore, based on the results of the report on mentions, we chose 2 favorite products (at least ten are possible – give us a fulcrum, some money and we will turn the world upside down). Further, according to the customer’s database, a series of photos from real objects were selected for our target audience: wooden houses, private stables, small recreation centers – where the selected products were used. For each item we: Talked about the difficulties (grayed wood, shabby coating) Described surface preparation technologies and the use of products Shared BEFORE and AFTER photos (this format is a favorite of the target audience) and sent ready-made cases for posting on forums, actively participating in discussions. Of course, it is impossible to correctly measure people’s love, but it is quite possible to track the growth of mentions of a positive tone. Moreover, these posts and discussions appear on the first page of search results for requests for solving such problems now – this is how SEO promotion works. Results As a result, first of all, we will give a diagram of the dynamics of search results in the format WAS – BECAME. We have increased brand awareness for 8 months: the diagram shows an increase in the number of mentions by more than 12 times, in reality – more than 70 (manually calculated), since when building this diagram, posting of the customer is not excluded from the output. Up to 10 new discussions from brand advocates appeared on the forums every week. A positive reputation in search results is formed by 99%. There are not only positive messages, but also neutral messages in the discussions are counted, since the real picture in fact cannot consist of anything but praise. As for the negative mentions, their number fell only in percentage terms; on the contrary, it increased in absolute terms. This is a normal situation with an increase in recognition and, accordingly, sales. Moreover, our task was not to remove the negative, but to work it out. This is the way to build a trusting relationship between the brand and the target audience. This is a normal situation with the growth of awareness and, accordingly, sales. Moreover, our task was not to remove the negative, but to work it out. This is the way to build a trusting brand relationship with the target audience.