Have you ever heard people identify themselves according to the brands they prefer? For example, someone might say they’re an “Apple person,” meaning they prefer Apple products, or a “Nike person,” meaning they prefer Nike apparel.
When a brand is embedded into a consumer’s lifestyle and purchase habits, the consumer does not have to think twice before becoming a customer. This is what brand awareness can do for a brand.
This guide covers the topic of brand awareness. It will explain what brand awareness is, how you can establish it among your target audience, and how to create campaigns that allow it to grow and adapt along with your business. Let’s dive in.
What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness signifies your target audience’s recognition and familiarity with your brand. When a company or product has high brand awareness, people often refer to it as being “trending,” “buzzworthy,” or simply “popular.” Creating brand awareness can be valuable when marketing and promoting your company and its products, especially in the early stages of a business.
Brand awareness is a vague concept. If you want your marketing to be successful, brand awareness is something you should focus on, even though it isn’t easy to measure.
Although it can’t be determined perfectly, it still has value. Awareness of a brand is key to the success of that brand’s business and marketing objectives. Here’s why.
Why is brand awareness important?
Brand awareness fosters trust.
If consumers are researching products and reading others’ opinions before they buy something, then it is very important for a brand to be trustworthy. If a consumer develops a strong connection to your brand, they are much more likely to keep buying your products without giving it much thought – this strengthens the relationship between trust and loyalty.
Brand awareness establishes that brand trust. When you have a face that represents your brand name, consumers can trust it more easily. Building brand awareness involves creating a personality for your brand and finding ways to connect with your audience. This can include being open to feedback and using storytelling to connect with your customers. There are many ways we can build trust with others. The human/brand relationship isn’t any different.
Brand awareness creates association.
I’m sure you’ve put a Band-Aid on when you’ve had a paper cut. When you have had a pressing question, I am sure you have Googled it. When you needed to make a few copies, you probably used a Xerox machine. I’ll bet that when you packed for a picnic, you grabbed a Coke to drink.
Am I correct? Most likely. Some of the above words are capitalized. These are brands, not nouns or verbs.
When you are talking about these brands in general, you should call them a bandage, a search engine, and a copier. However, it is more entertaining to mention the brand itself, even if we are not using their individual product.
That’s what brand awareness does. It causes us to subconsciously associate actions and products with particular brands, which then encourages us to replace common words with branded terms. Before you know it, things like paper cuts or picnics will start doing the marketing for us.
Brand awareness builds brand equity.
A brand’s equity is its value to consumers, as determined by their experiences and overall perception of the brand. If you have a positive experience with a brand, you have positive brand equity for that company. The same goes for negative experiences.
Here are a few valuable things that come from positive brand equity:
- Higher prices due to higher perceived value
- A higher stock price
- The ability to expand business through product or service line extensions
- Greater social impact due to brand name value
How does a brand establish (and increase) brand equity? The best way to improve your brand is to focus on building brand awareness and creating positive experiences with your customers. Brand awareness is the foundation of brand equity.
A consumer who is aware of a brand will start to recognize it without needing any help, seek it out to make a purchase, begin to prefer it over other similar brands, and establish a loyalty that not only encourages them to make more purchases, but also inspires them to recommend the brand to family and friends.
That is why brand awareness is so important. When you have a strong brand, it helps you build trust with your customers, create positive associations, and develop a lot of equity in your brand. This makes it so your brand can become a familiar name to consumers and something they rely on.
How to Build Brand Awareness
Building brand awareness takes time and effort. You won’t see results overnight, but if you’re consistent, you will eventually build a strong relationship with your audience and the general public. A company’s success does not come from a single advertisement or marketing campaign.
Bringing in paying customers is only one part of creating strong brand awareness. There are multiple efforts that go into it and they all need to happen at the same time for the brand to become well-known.
You will not be successful in raising brand awareness if you only run a few product advertisements on Facebook. The ad won’t just be ineffective, the consumer will also be focused on the product rather than the brand.
Here are some ways to establish a solid brand awareness foundation and make a lasting impact with your audience:
1. Understand your audience
Before you can market something to someone, you need to understand who your audience is and what they want. You should create content that appeals to the people you want to connect with.
What are a few key questions I should ask to ensure I’m writing for my audience?
Who is your audience?
Your audience is the most important part of brand awareness. You need customers to help your brand awareness grow.
You need to consider who your target audience is.
When producing content, consider your target audience’s demographics such as age, gender, location, and interests. This will help you decide how to structure your content and what will appeal to their interests and values.
For example, if your company creates hand-made bouquets, your target audience is primarily engaged women. If you want to appeal to brides, you should focus your content around giving them a great experience. This will show that you’re dedicated to the industry and committed to providing them with what they’re looking for.
Where does your audience spend time online?
You should also research your audience’s online tendencies.
To appeal to your target audience, you should spend time identifying the websites and blogs they visit and creating content for those platforms.
You can also look at the types of content your audience spends the most time on your existing pages. If you notice that your audience interacts more with pages that include videos rather than images, then consider making videos a part of your brand awareness strategy.
The purpose of a website is to connect with visitors and give them what they want or need. By studying visitor behavior, you can learn how to keep them coming back.
2. Create a content strategy
After you have a firm grasp on who your audience is, you will need to come up with a plan to reach them.
Focus on your story
Your company’s story is a great way to increase your brand awareness.
You can create a brand identity that reflects the origin story of your company, how it achieved success, and its core values. Be sure to keep these things in mind when running your campaign so that your company presents a clear image.
This will allow you to connect with your customers on a more personal level, letting them see who you are as a person, and not just a business selling products and services.
Choose your channels
Choose the types of content you want to use. There are many that can work well, including:
- Site pages: When people want to learn about a brand, the first place they look is the “About Us” section of a website. Here, they should also find a page that explains and describes your company culture, including your beliefs and work environment.
- Blog posts: Blogs are one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site and one of the best channels for content marketing. You can share your knowledge and become a trusted voice in your industry if you post blogs regularly.
- Downloadable guides: Site visitors love anything free and information is no exception. Advertise a free downloadable guide on the first page of your website or on pages that correspond with what information you’re covering in the guide.
- Videos: Videos are another great type of content that will allow potential customers to see what you’re all about as a company. They give them a behind the scenes look at your company and how you function, which makes them feel like they’re part of the family.
- Webinars: Webinars are becoming increasingly popular simply because you can watch and listen to the information rather than reading it. This is a great content marketing technique that you can even link to in your blogs about similar topics.
Create a schedule
When you create a schedule, it helps you keep your plan on track. Without it, you’ve got a map with no roads.
Be consistent with how often you publish new content.
It is beneficial to your brand recognition to maintain consistency within your company, for example in how frequently you post blogs, or the tone in which they are written.
Guest blog on other niche websites.
Writing articles for other people’s blogs is a great way to increase your own brand’s visibility with very little work. You can use the traffic that is already going to another website to get more people to see your brand while also providing helpful and relevant content.
This means that you shouldn’t just be selling your product to people who are not ready to buy, but rather you should be writing in your brand voice and presenting yourself as human first, and a company second. If you don’t want to guest blog, you could always try publishing sponsored content on websites that are related to your niche.
3. Offer freemium
The freemium business model puts out a basic product for free but charges for anything seen as premium or needing an enterprise level. Many software companies, like HubSpot and Trello, charge different prices for their products based on how they are being used.
customers can try your brand and product for free before deciding if they want to buy it. If you want to try a product before you buy it, you can do so for as long as you want with this opportunity. This is in contrast to a free trial period that some companies offer.
A freemium option is one that is offered for free, with the understanding that the company’s watermark will be present on any public-facing areas of the product or service. With freemium, both the consumer and the brand come out ahead. The consumer gets the product at no cost, and the brand gets free advertising every time the product is used.
The Freemium marketing strategy may be the best way to increase brand awareness for your business and product offer, depending on your type of business.
4. Create free content
Nowadays, it is easier than ever to create content… which is good because today consumers turn to the internet for questions, concerns, and DIY projects.
Content is an enjoyable way to make people more aware of your brand because it allows you to most easily express your personality and share your opinions and views on various issues – two things which make your brand more relatable and human.
Content doesn’t have to be in written form, either. You can create all sorts of engaging content, including videos, infographics, and podcasts. There are other options for written content like blogs and downloadable guides.
That’s right: you can put it on other people’s websites, too Your content doesn’t have to only be on your website, it can also be on other people’s websites. Posting content as a guest on another site or blog and sponsored content are both ways to reach new audiences and create different types of content.
If you’re not regularly creating content, you could be missing out on some great opportunities to increase brand awareness. Content provides a great way to connect with your audience while getting your brand name in front of people.
5. Sponsor events
How many festivals, concerts, fairs, and exhibitions have you been to? These events cannot happen without the sponsorships from brands. See any brand names on the t-shirt, koozie, or string backpack you took from the event?
Sponsoring events is a great way to get your brand in front of a lot of people who are probably interested in what you’re selling. Your brand name will be promoted heavily if you sponsor an event, through means such as banners, flyers, and water bottles.
When you sponsor an event, you can show consumers that your brand is interested in the same event topics. This will help create a connection between your brand and the event, leading consumers to associate your brand with the event. It can also help your company build brand awareness among highly specialized and qualified audiences. Professionals don’t attend events just for fun. They go to learn about the latest advancements in their field.
It’s more than just setting up a booth in a room full of other booths. If you sponsor events on a regular basis, attendees will start to associate you with being a leader in the field. They key is to be consistent in your sponsorship.
6. Analyze your results
It is essential to understand and keep track of your progress in order to be successful.
You can improve your marketing strategy by analyzing the results of your different marketing strategies and understanding which techniques work and which don’t work.
Google Analytics is a powerful platform that provides insight into how your content is performing online.
Google Analytics allows you to track your website’s traffic, see where your customers are coming from, and learn what they’re clicking on.
The most valuable content to your goals is the content that is most popular with your audience. Use data to determine what topics are the most popular with your audience, and then create new content based on those topics.
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