Generating awareness with potential customers who currently may not know of your client's brand is an integral part of almost any marketing plan. Create important brand-associations with the client's product and increase market share in their industry. 

As an example, your client is a hip, new retail website that sells women's clothes. They have the same product lines as some of the top UK women's retailers, but unfortunately, no one has ever heard of them and you're tasked with driving traffic to their site to increase conversions. How do you do that? Here are some key focus areas to keep in mind for brand-conscious advertisers:

1. Bid for position:

When a brand name is the top result in both natural and paid search results, 83% of consumers looking to buy would consider a purchase. 

Without paid search, however, the same brand name as the top result in organic search only obtains 73% purchase consideration

Enquiro Research in partnership with Ipsos Mori, April 2008   

 Ads that appear in the top positions on search result pages gain maximum results in terms of exposure and brand affinity. For example, your retail client has the same exact products as the top UK retailers. When you bid for position in Google search, consumers may see their ads above the top retailers. When your client's potential customers are ready to buy, your hope is that they think of your client's brand first and return to purchase the item they previously researched. Increasing bids on core keywords will keep your clients top-of-mind in their competitive market, drive large volumes of traffic to their sites and ultimately increase conversions.

As seen in the chart above, brand recall dramatically increases when a client is present in the top sponsored links or the top organic results. Results are even greater when a brand is present in both sponsored and organic listings.

2. Reach more customers with generic keywords: Your client wants you to generate more traffic to their site and build their website's online visibility. Using the example above, focus on keywords such as "women's jumper", "women's dress" "formal dress". These terms are generic and have the potential to drive a lot of traffic. However, keep in mind that the user may not be interested in converting right away. They are in the research phase of the buying cycle and are just browsing different websites (as they would if they were on the high street) and trying to determine if they like what they see. Using generic keywords allows you to reach a large number of potential customers and will help build awareness and interest in the client's product or brand.

3. Complement offline with online: In an effort to establish themselves among UK retailers, your women's retailer client has taken out ads in the hippest magazines. Additionally, they have commercials playing during prime time television. With many people multi-tasking as they consume media (visiting websites while watching TV, listening to radio while reading a magazine, etc), make sure you complement any offline campaigns with a strong online presence. Customers who see brands offline are likely to search on the brands or messaging from these campaigns. Being present at this stage is crucial. 

When there is a strong offline media presence a clear correlation between the offline media campaign and online search behaviour can be seen. 

In general, the stronger the offline media presence the stronger the correlation between offline media and online search behaviour.

Milward Brown, "Understanding the role of Search in the context of an offline media campaign", March 2008

4. Engage potential customers across the web: Did you know that website users spend a majority of their their time browsing beyond search? With the Google content network you can ensure that your ads are shown to these potential customers when and where they will be interested in your offering. Perhaps, your target customer is on a site focusing on celebrity fashion. Wouldn't it be great to show your client's retail ads right next to top celebrities wearing similar brands and styles to those you are advertising? The content network helps your clients reach potential customers in all stages of the buying cycle.  You can generate interest among website visitors who weren’t already aware of a client's products or services, or might not have searched on Google for them. 

5. Harness the power of display advertising: Using display advertising, you can generate consumer interest, drive search query volume and increase sales for your clients. Engage potential customers with your clients' brands and grab their attention by using image ads, and rich media formats such as video and flash ads on the content network. We imagined that your client's target customer is on a celebrity website. Instead of having a text ad describing your client's products, you can show, instead of tell, potential customers what they would get e.g. an outfit like their favourite celebrity. 

In a recent study, display advertising led to a 155% increase in searches for brand and segment terms.

ComScore Ad Effectiveness study for Specific Media for 12-month period ending August 2008. 

If you're new to display advertising, why not use our free Display ad builder tool? This tool helps you create professional-looking display ads in just minutes with options to use headlines, a call to action, images and/or your client's logo.