How to Increase brand Awareness

You’ve heard people refer to themselves as “Apple People, Nike Belters,” or Trader Joe’s consumers. But what is brand awareness, and how does it impact your business? 

Brand Awareness is the Key To Engaging Your Audience And Positioning Yourself As A Strong Player In Today’s Marketplace. Therefore, brand recognition helps brands embed themselves into consumer lifestyles and purchase habits so that they won’t hesitate to become a customer – again and again. With the power of a well-known brand, you can finally benefit from everything Awareness has to offer.

Let this guide help you grasp the concept of branding by establishing its definition, exploring why companies should invest in their brands and understanding where customers are getting these insights when purchasing quality goods/services. So let’s get started.

What Is Brand Awareness?

A brand’s awareness measures how well your target audience recognizes your brand. A brand with high brand awareness may be the hottest trend. Brand awareness is crucial to the marketing and promotion of your company or products, especially during the start-up phase.

Although brand awareness seems a confusing notion at first glance, it is crucial to the success of any company. If you’re one of those marketers and business owners who tries to measure success with precise numbers, brand awareness is not likely to be your cup of tea.

This doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value, just because it isn’t a metric that can be perfectly determined. Brand awareness plays a vital role in marketing and business success. Read on to learn why.

Importance of Brand Awareness

Brand Awareness Builds Trust

A brand’s trust is critical in a world where consumers rely on extensive research and other opinions before purchasing. Once your brand bonds with your customers, they’re more likely to make repeat purchases without forethought.

It is brand awareness that fosters brand trust. A brand awareness campaign gives your brand a personality and a way to be sincere, receive feedback and share a  story. As humans, we build trust by doing all of these things.

Brand Awareness Leads to Association

Google is your go-to resource when you have a pressing question. Whenever you get a small cut, chances are you’ve put on a bandage. Almost certainly, when you packed for a picnic, you also brought a Coke with you.

Is this correct? It may have caught your attention that a few words are capitalized. These are brand names, not nouns or verbs. It is more fun, though, to refer to the company itself, even when we don’t use their specific products.

That is the purpose of brand awareness. As a result, actions and products are associated with particular brands, subconsciously encouraging us to substitute branded terms for common ones. Simple paper cuts and picnics are doing the marketing in no time.

Brand Recognition Boosts Brand Equity

A brand’s equity is determined by the experiences of consumers and the overall perception of the brand. Positive experiences and perceptions lead to positive brand equity, and negative perceptions lead to negative brand equity.

How can a brand establish (and increase) brand equity? Brand Awareness is the key to building brand equity.  Your brand becomes a household name and consumer staple when you establish trust with your customers, create positive associations, and build valuable brand equity.

As soon as a consumer becomes familiar with a brand, they recognize it without assistance, seek it out to make a purchase. They begin to prefer it over similar brands, resulting in loyalty that spurs on further purchases and inspires referrals to family and friends.

Brand Awareness: How to Build It

Your audience and the general public will not become aware of your brand overnight. A simple advertisement or marketing campaign won’t help either.

Brand awareness results from multiple simultaneous efforts that go beyond merely seeking out paying customers. You won’t raise brand recognition by running a few product advertisements on Facebook. 

The following is a list of ways for you to create brand awareness and leave a lasting impression with your audience:

Be a Person, Not a Company

What is one of the things you like discovering when you discover something new? It is enjoyable for many people to learn about their qualities, benefits and drawbacks. Moreover, they pay close attention to what will benefit them and what deals excite them.

These are the traits your brand should highlight and promote. When you want to leave an impact on your audience, you need to be more than just a company that sells stuff. What else would you describe yourself as? How would you describe your brand?

Engage Your Audience

All human beings benefit from social contact and spending time with others, whether introverts or extroverts. We learn new things, stay in touch, and get to know each other through social media. The same applies to your brand. People aren’t going to recognize you as anything other than a business with a singular ambition (and the same goes for individuals).

You have to be social if you want to raise brand recognition. Assume you are looking to make friends instead of a business trying to gain customers. Interact with your audience by posting comments, answering questions, or retweeting and sharing content you like. Over half of brand reputation is determined by online social interactions. The more social you are, the more you will be known by others.

Make Sharing Simple and Easy

Provide an effortless way for your audience to share your content, no matter what your industry, product offering, or marketing strategy may be. These can include blog posts, videos, social media posts, or product pages. Ultimately, the most crucial thing is that it’s shareable.

Customer trust and familiarity are built through word-of-mouth marketing. Someone will often pay attention to a brand or product if a friend or family member recommends it. By making it easy to share your stuff, consumers will raise brand awareness for you. Your audience wants interaction beyond asking for money, participation, or loyalty. You need to establish and build brand recognition within your target audience.

Marketing Strategy for Brand Awareness

The process of building brand awareness from the ground up is something you already know how to do. Let’s create a powerful yet simple brand awareness strategy to keep the flywheel turning.

Guest Blog on Relevant Niche Websites

Increasing brand awareness through guest blogging is a simple and effective way to increase traffic. Take advantage of the traffic that already arrives at another website to get more eyes on your brand while providing helpful and relevant content.

 In other words, you’re not just selling your product; you’re presenting yourself as a human first, a company second.

Consider Co-marketing

By partnering with another brand, you can take advantage of that brand’s audience while highlighting who you are and what you offer in the marketplace.

There are many ways to run the campaign, including creating shared offers or hosting an Instagram live together. In any case, partnering with another brand could help you double or even triple your reach.

Advertise Broadly

Although advertising may not build brand recognition as much as it builds product awareness, it remains an effective way to help people discover your brand in a low-touch, non-intrusive manner. Start with online advertising, which includes paid social media and pay-per-click. In order to achieve a truly global reach and launch more sophisticated campaigns on a mass scale, you can use programmatic advertising campaigns.

Find a Spokesperson or Mascot for Your Organization

Smaller companies may not afford this, but if you have the budget, consider hiring a spokesperson or actor to represent your business. As well as humanizing your brand, you also give customers a glimpse of the friendly and knowledgeable service they can expect.

Using a person is not necessary either. It’s possible to give your brand a face by creating an animated mascot, a low-cost but equally effective strategy.

Pick a Symbol That Represents You

It’s not just about a logo, though that certainly plays a role. Create a symbol that you can use across your marketing, advertising, and organic campaigns by working with your branding team or a freelance graphic designer. Take a cue from Apple, McDonald’s, and Nike and incorporate the symbol into your product packaging.

Create a Catchy Slogan That Stands Out

A short motto or slogan is the cornerstone of a strong brand awareness strategy and is a simple way to build recognition. It’s tough to condense everything you do into a few words. Tell customers what makes you different, what you can offer, and why they choose you.

Best Ways to Increase Brand Awareness

Now that your brand awareness has taken off, people talk about you without seeing an advertisement. Why not build on your strong foundation and expand your brand awareness? As a brand, what can you do to increase your brand recognition continually?

Check out these creative ways to increase brand awareness beyond your original campaign.

Freemium Model

The freemium business model offers a product or product line for free and only charges for a premium or enterprise-level products. Offering a freemium option allows customers to sample your brand and product before purchasing. Technically, this is a test-before-you-buy opportunity that can last forever instead of free trials offered by some companies.

Provide Free Content

Today, the Internet serves as a one-stop-shop for consumers’ questions, concerns, and DIY projects. Brand awareness can be raised using content because it allows you to showcase personality and share opinions and positions on issues.

Your content does not need to be limited to the web page alone. Guest posts and sponsored content are great ways to reach new audiences and diversify your content.

Indeed, written content like blogs and downloadable guides are arguably the easiest, but they’re not the only option. Not all content has to be written. As well as creating videos, you can make infographics, podcasts, and much more. 

Organize and Sponsor Events

Have you attended any festivals, concerts, fairs, or exhibitions? Sponsorship of these events is typically not possible without the support of brands. It is an excellent way to get your brand ahead of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of potential customers. You will see your brand name everywhere if you sponsor an event, from banners to flyers to water bottles. Additionally, it can help your company build brand awareness among highly specialized and qualified audiences. 

Personalize Your Brand

Defining your brand’s narrative and treating it as an individual are the first steps to giving it a personality. Your brand awareness will skyrocket when you market your products and services with personality. While your consumers will undoubtedly notice what you’re advertising, they will also notice your personality.

Ways to Measure Brand Awareness

If you’re trying to raise brand awareness, how do you know it’s working? What do you do when faced with a crisis, a change of direction, or competing against a rising competitor? The answer is you measure it.

Brand recognition cannot be measured in the traditional sense. However, you can still review activities and metrics that will help you gauge how popular and recognized your brand is among consumers.

You can find out where you need to tweak your efforts based on brand recognition by using the following methods:

Quantitative Brand Awareness Measures

You can use this information to understand your brand awareness better. Check out these metrics to measure it quantitatively:

• Direct traffic
• Social engagement
• Number of visits to the site

Qualitative Brand Awareness Measures

The brand awareness score gets a little fuzzy at this point. However, you can still use these methods to determine who and how many people are aware of your brand. Here are some ways to measure qualitatively:

• Setting up Google Alerts and searching Google. 
• Listening to others
• Conducting brand awareness surveys

Now, It’s Up to You

Brand awareness can profoundly impact your marketing efforts, consumer perception, and revenue. If you use these techniques to build brand awareness, you’ll see a loyal audience that recognizes your brand among competitors, chooses your products, and refers your products to others.