5 ways to get your business recognised through brand activation

While most popular brands are using activations to build popularity and give the consumer an experience that will make them feel a real personal connection to the company.

However, some do not know how to engage with their consumers.

What is brand activation?

The phrase essentially refers to the process of making your brand known to people, increasing awareness and engagement through some kind of brand experience.

Think about when you first start a business. Nobody knows who you are and they sure as hell aren’t aware of your brand. Your brand is effectively lifeless. Dead. Null and void. And it needs to be ‘activated’ before it can be of any use.

But this doesn’t just apply to new brands. If a business wants to re-brand itself it can’t just make a few changes and hope people notice. It needs to go through the process of switching people’s minds over to the new brand and making them aware of it.

How can this be done, you ask yourself? Brand activation comes in many forms and is delivered through multiple channels. Brand activation that resonates with customers and achieves results calls for strategic planning that starts with "why." Why should your target audiences care? Why would they engage? Then focus on the "how."

Whether the objective is to move products off the shelf, sign up new customers or increase subscriptions to an email newsletter, brand activation is not just about gaining affinity - it's about inspiring consumers to act.

Do you want your consumers to watch a video and then click on an offer, share a selfie with your mascot and hashtag on Instagram, or motivate them to enter a contest that asks them to provide their email address and opt-in to brand updates?

By starting with "why" and developing an activation model through a multi-channel approach - such as social, experiential, digital - you can encourage engagement and emotion that creates face-to-face engagement with your audience and sells products. Personalizing and layering the experience will get you further than a strict awareness campaign.

So with that said, here are five steps for creating brand activation programs that inspire consumers to act:

Set a Goal

Decide what it is you want to accomplish with brand activation. Do you want to gain 10% more customers than last year? Or is this a public service message that you want everyone to perform a specific type of check on themselves and their loved ones? Whatever you’re trying to accomplish, you need to keep it in mind. Make sure it’s measurable and specific.

Create a Budget

You don’t need a huge budget to create an effective brand activation campaign. However, because there are components of making an impression as well as measuring and analyzing your work, you want to make sure there is some money in your marketing or event budget for brand activation.

It’s difficult to carve that sort of time or expense out of a marketing budget without it being a line-item. At the very least, you’ll be allocating staff to analysis and promotion so factor those activities in.

Understand and Appeal to Your Audience

A brand activation campaign will not be successful if it doesn’t appeal to your target audience. That's why it is important for you to understand their likes and their challenges. You want to catch their eye with your campaign.

Create a Call to Action That Will Help You Reach Your Goal

Every brand activation campaign needs a call to action. After all, you’ve just gone to extraordinary lengths to reach your ideal audience. If you leave it at that, it’s like taking the stage, picking up the microphone, clearing your throat, and then walking away.

Use Different Channels to Deliver Your Marketing Message

Again, you’ve gone out of your way to get their attention. Why stop there? Most experiential marketing goes viral because it’s placed on the Web and people watch it. It does not go viral just because a few hundred people saw it in person.

Make sure you’re sharing what you’re doing. Pay attention to capturing the fun people are having. After all, fun is contagious. People want to be entertained, educated, and inspired. Look for ways to give them exactly that and you’ll get more shares and likes, and general interaction with your content.