How To Increase Brand Awareness: 10 Top Strategies

What tactics form the foundation of an effective brand awareness strategy? How do you ensure that your target audience understands not only who you are, but also what you stand for, how your brand voice sounds, and why? Understanding how to create business awareness is essential for any entrepreneur looking to succeed in today’s competitive market. Here’s everything you need to know to build brand awareness. 

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Building brand awareness leads to increased brand value. As your brand’s value grows, you will attract new audiences. But why is this important? And, most importantly, what are the practical steps you can take to proactively increase brand awareness?

This guide will help you build awareness of your brand among your target audience and create effective campaigns for business growth. Let’s dive in.

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness is a marketing term that describes how well your target audience knows and recognizes your brand. Brands with high brand awareness are commonly referred to as ‘trending,’ ‘buzzworthy,’ or simply ‘popular.’ Implementing top-notch marketing tactics can offer creative insights into how to create business awareness. 

Establishing brand awareness is important when marketing and promoting your company and products, particularly in the early stages of a business. Analyzing market trends is fundamental in determining how to create business awareness and stay relevant.

Key Takeaways:

• Brand awareness refers to consumers’ familiarity with a specific product or service.
• A brand awareness campaign aims to familiarize the public with a new or revised product while distinguishing it from the competition.
• Social media has emerged as an important new tool in brand awareness marketing.

Why is Brand Awareness Important?

The instance mentioned earlier serves as an excellent initial reference for grasping the significance of enhancing brand awareness. However, there exist numerous advantages for businesses in elevating their visibility among the public. To commence, consider these revealing statistics:

Three impressive statistics about strong brand awareness:

• 46% of consumers would pay more to buy from brands they trust.
• Brands with consistent presentation increase revenue by up to 33%.
• Brand recognition requires 5-7 impressions to develop.

But let’s go a little deeper. Here are four reasons to consider your brand awareness campaigns and brand-building activities:

Brand Awareness Strategy Improves Brand Trust

In a world where consumers rely on extensive research and other people’s opinions before making a purchase, brand trust is critical. Conducting market research is vital in uncovering how to create business awareness and identify target demographics.

Once a consumer develops a bond with your brand, they are more likely to make repeat purchases with little to no thought, bridging the trust-loyalty gap.

Brand awareness establishes brand trust. When you put a face to your brand name, consumers are more likely to trust it. Brand awareness campaigns give your brand a personality and a platform to be authentic, receive feedback, and tell a story. Customer feedback plays a pivotal role in understanding how to create business awareness and tailor marketing strategies accordingly.

These are all ways by which humans develop trust with one another. The human-brand relationship is not any different.

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Building Brand Awareness Gives You a Competitive Edge

People naturally gravitate toward the things they understand and are accustomed to, and we frequently show resistance to change. In a sales environment, this tendency shows up as consumers sticking with brands they are already familiar with and confident in.

Consider searching for a product on Amazon, as an example. If you type in a smartphone, you will be presented with hundreds of options from a variety of manufacturers. However, you’d be more likely to choose an Apple or Samsung device over one from a brand you’ve never heard of, even if they’re significantly more expensive than competitors. The same goes for your brand. If you can get people to recognize and remember your brand among a wide range of competitors, you’re much more likely to get their business.

Brand Awareness Influences Who You Can Employ

It is not just about consumers. People also prefer to work for brands they recognize, understand, and respect. According to LinkedIn, companies with strong branding attract 50% more job applicants than their competitors. This is consistent with findings from the same study, which found that 75% of applicants think about the brand before applying.

Brand Awareness Increases Brand Equity

Brand equity refers to a brand’s value, which is determined by consumer interactions with and perceptions of the brand. Positive experiences and perceptions lead to positive brand equity, as do negative notions.

Here are some of the benefits of having positive brand equity:

• Increased prices due to higher perceived value
• A higher stock price.
• The capability to expand business through product or service line extensions.
• Increased social impact due to brand name value

How does a brand build (and grow) brand equity? By increasing brand awareness while consistently promoting positive experiences with the brand. Brand awareness is the foundation for brand equity.

10 Strategies To Increase Brand Awareness

Need assistance in making your brand as recognizable as some of the world’s most well-known names? Spoilers: they’re all doing the same thing but with a relentless focus and frequency. Building brand awareness involves the following steps:

1. Prioritise Consistency

When it comes to how you communicate your brand, consistency encompasses a wide range of concepts. But what is consistency?

For example, you could interpret it as maintaining a consistent and recognizable visual identity across platforms. Sure, that’s an important way to increase brand awareness. In fact, color can increase brand recognition by up to 80%, and consumers are 81% more likely to remember your company’s colors than its name.

However consistency extends beyond the appearance and feel of your brand. We’re also discussing consistency in your tone of voice and digital output. You want everything you put out there to feel like it came from the same place, with the same values.

Consistency in your products, achieved through rock-solid quality assurance, is also an important component of any brand awareness strategy, as is focusing on consistently excellent customer service. This can help to establish a reputation, which encourages word-of-mouth growth, ultimately increasing brand equity and awareness.

2. Think About More Than Just Your Products

Whatever your target demographic is, they are likely to be conscientious consumers who want their favorite brands to be about more than just the nuts and bolts of business.

In other words, it pays to advocate for something. Creating, publishing, and promoting your values can help you stand out from the crowd and form relationships that increase brand awareness.

Sure, great products or services are important, but if customers remember you as a brand that supports sustainability, worker rights, or your local community, that will help raise brand awareness. 

3. Give Back

On that note, what are you doing for your local community? Networking events provide opportunities to discover how to create business awareness within local communities.

What are you doing to benefit the world at large? It is no longer viable to simply exist as a company that produces an excellent product. Consumers expect their brands to not only stand for something but also to participate in philanthropic activities.

Our only advice here is to walk carefully on a tightrope suspended over pitfalls such as greenwashing. The best way to accomplish this is to be demonstrably good–and mean it. Make goodwill a part of your brand’s culture, not just a series of public relations opportunities.

4. Think Omnichannel

Are you making the most of your opportunity? Any brand awareness campaign needs to meet your target audience where they are to reach as many of them as possible. This involves launching your marketing campaigns using an omnichannel strategy.

Are your social media posts planned for all relevant channels? Is your publishing schedule consistent across all touchpoints? And is your brand voice being heard everywhere it can? Social media platforms provide valuable insights into how to create business awareness among diverse audiences.

The term “omnichannel” also describes your response tactics. Specifically: customer service and developing practical insight. It pays to pay attention to what clients are saying, where they are saying it, and how quickly you can respond. Providing exceptional customer service contributes to how to create business awareness by fostering positive word-of-mouth referrals.

In the modern era, this involves employing the appropriate software to listen for you—at scale, with natural language processing built to gather all of the data (from all channels) into one location.

5. Associate With Influencers Who Share Your Views

Standing on the shoulders of giants can be advantageous at times. Collaborating with influencers is an innovative approach to learning how to create business awareness and reach new markets. The awareness, trust, and loyalty of influencers with large followings are already established; why not collaborate with them to take advantage of this valuable brand-building resource?

It’s a good idea to identify influencers who share your values and whose audiences would be interested in your products or services on relevant social media platforms for your business. One-and-done transactions should be avoided as little information can be tracked or learned from them. Instead, use partnered content on their channel that you can modify over time as part of a “test and learn” strategy. Creating compelling visual content is key in learning how to create business awareness and captivate audiences’ attention.

6. Conduct a Thought Leadership Program

Making sure that your target audience respects you in addition to knowing who you are is essential to building awareness. Developing a thought leadership program that establishes the individuals behind your brand as authorities in their domain is an excellent method to check both boxes.

The most effective way to do this is to stack a few different strategies together to create a comprehensive package that lasts for at least a year. Make sure your experts are regularly publishing opinion pieces on LinkedIn that are relevant to their industry. Then, cross-promote these posts on any other owned and third-party channels that are relevant.

Establishing your brand’s position as an industry voice can also be accomplished by producing an annual whitepaper or industry report that readers, whether B2B or B2C, will consider essential reading. Try to arrange for your knowledgeable executives to moderate panels, attend trade shows, host events, or do occasional podcast appearances throughout the year. Hosting webinars and workshops is an interactive approach to teaching how to create business awareness and showcase expertise.

As part of an organized brand awareness campaign, the goal is to elevate your brand’s voice to the center of the conversation – and to have all of the answers to burning industry questions.

7. Advertise Intelligently

Advertising may be an age-old way to raise brand awareness, but how your advertisements reach people’s eyes is constantly changing. Digital advertising platforms are constantly becoming smarter and more targeted, which means that your brand awareness campaigns can be tailored to do exactly that: increase brand identity. Digital marketing offers various strategies on how to create business awareness online. 

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For example, if you use Meta/Facebook’s advertising platform, a brand awareness campaign requires a different setting and advertising style than one designed to generate clicks or drive purchases. 

When running campaigns, the most important thing is to test different approaches with A/B testing whenever possible, then use all of the reporting data provided by these platforms to fine-tune your next run of ads. Investing in local advertising campaigns is also a targeted approach to learning how to create business awareness within specific geographic regions.

8. Sponsorship Increases Your Brand Awareness

Sponsorship allows you to increase brand awareness by strategically aligning your brand with events, organizations, or causes that are relevant to your target audience. Here’s how to do it successfully:

Find Relevant Opportunities: Explore conferences, events, charitable endeavors, and influencer collaborations that fit the demographics of your target market and your brand’s core values.

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Analyze Audience Reach: Make sure each sponsorship opportunity fits with your brand’s objectives for raising awareness and visibility by evaluating its reach and potential for engagement. 

Establish Goals: Clearly state your goals for the sponsorship, including increasing brand awareness, expanding your audience, and improving your reputation.

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Customize Your Message: Create an engaging message that encourages the target demographic of the sponsored event or initiative of your brand’s values, mission, and unique selling propositions.

Boost Your Brand Visibility: Make the most of all the channels available to increase brand visibility before, during, and following the sponsored event. These could involve product placement, speaking engagements, branded advertising, and social media marketing.

Engage with Attendees: To establish enduring brand interactions, actively engage attendees and participants at the sponsored event through interactive experiences, giveaways, seminars, or demonstrations.

Measure Brand Awareness Outcomes: Implement monitoring systems to assess how the sponsorship has affected brand awareness through metrics like website traffic, social media mentions, media coverage, and brand sentiment.

Develop Long-Term Relationships: To position your brand as a reliable and esteemed member of the community, and cultivate enduring relationships with event organizers, partners, and attendees. Engaging with industry forums and online communities provides valuable insights into how to create business awareness and establish credibility.

9. Make An Impression With Your Work

You want people who are interested in you and your target audience to know who you are, but what impression do you want to leave on them? Not that you’re the same as everyone else, probably. While brand recognition is important, standing out is what boosts your brand awareness and brand loyalty.

Therefore, it’s beneficial to be unique, and it’s even better to disrupt your industry. Of course, there’s no magic bullet for this. Rather, stand back, observe what your competitors are doing, and make an effort to create campaigns that, just by being memorable, can build solid brand awareness.

10. Measure Brand Awareness To Increase it

Only when you can assess current conditions and compare them with post-campaign changes will you be able to determine whether your brand awareness strategy is working or not. And measuring is necessary for that.

Customer surveys, particularly those that ask about assisted and unaided brand recall, are an excellent tool for tracking brand awareness. However, suppose you want to track brand awareness in a truly scientific manner. In that case, you’ll need software that can monitor the reach and share of voice across all digital touchpoints as well as social media platform interactions.

In simple terms, measuring helps to build your brand awareness.

Brand Awareness Strategy

You already know ways to build awareness for your brand from the ground up. It’s now time to assemble a straightforward yet effective brand awareness plan that will maintain the flywheel in motion.

1. Write Guest Blogs on Niche Websites

One of the easiest and least time-consuming ways to raise brand awareness is through guest blogging. By providing helpful and relevant content, you can leverage the traffic that is already coming to another website to increase the number of people who are aware of your brand. Content marketing is a powerful tool in learning how to create business awareness and establish thought leadership.

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Put another way, you’re writing in your brand voice and putting the needs of people before your interests as a business, rather than just pushing your product on people who aren’t ready to buy. Publishing sponsored content on niche websites would be an excellent substitute for guest blogging.

2. Consider Co-Marketing

Partnering with complementary businesses can offer insights into how to create business awareness through cross-promotion. In addition to letting you capitalize on another brand’s audience, co-marketing is a great method to establish your identity and highlight the benefits you offer in the market. Building a strong brand identity is a foundational step in learning how to create business awareness and build trust with customers.

Assume you own a business that offers environmentally friendly yoga mats and accessories. You could potentially partner with a popular yoga studio or a well-known yoga instructor. The campaign might look like this:

Co-branded Events: Organize joint yoga workshops or classes where attendees can test out your eco-friendly mats and accessories. This can be done either physically in the studio or virtually via live-streaming sessions.

Discounts and Promotions: Provide members of the studio or the instructor’s followers with discounts on your merchandise. The yoga studio, for example, might advertise your goods in their newsletters and on social media, providing their members with a unique coupon code that they can use on your website. Offering free trials or samples is an effective strategy in demonstrating how to create business awareness and generate interest in products or services.

Collaborate on content creation: Produce educational videos or blog entries where the yoga instructor uses your product or service. Leveraging user-generated content provides valuable insights into how to create business awareness and foster brand advocacy. You can distribute this content to a larger yoga and sustainability-interested audience by posting it on the platforms of both your company and the instructor.

No matter what, collaborating with another brand has the potential to double or even triple your reach and build a brand awareness among your target audience. 

3. Advertise Everywhere To Build A Brand

Though it may not increase brand awareness as much as it does product awareness, advertising is still one of the most effective low-key ways to spread the word about what you’re selling.

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You may want to start with PPC and sponsored social media advertising, which are forms of online advertising. You can start programmatic advertising campaigns if you’re interested in really being everywhere and launching more complex campaigns on a large scale.

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4. Make a Mascot for the Business or Hire a Face

Smaller businesses might not be able to afford this, but if you do, you might want to think about casting a spokesperson or actor to represent the brand. Small businesses often struggle with determining how to create business awareness on a limited budget.

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Establishing a unique persona for the brand facilitates the development of stronger relationships with the target market. Because people form attachments to faces they recognize, this visual representation helps consumers connect emotionally and increases recognition of a brand.

In addition to humanizing your brand—you can also use this to convey to customers the kind of informed and pleasant service they can anticipate.

5. Make a Short, Memorable Slogan

Since a slogan condenses the core of a brand’s message or value proposition into a memorable and appealing form, it is an effective tool for raising brand awareness. A catchy slogan can help people remember a brand by providing a brief review of its values and reasons for being memorable.

Build Brand Awareness: The Smart Way

There’s really only one thing to keep in mind if you come here looking for information on “how to increase brand awareness”: if you don’t keep an eye on your business metrics, all of your efforts to raise them will be in vain. 

However, in that context, what is “brand awareness” really? How does it appear in a metric? 

It’s a combination of an excessive number of distinct data points, too numerous for any one person to keep track of. And that’s precisely where machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered software can be useful. Passion also plays an important role in building brand awareness among target audience. 

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Aspirations come true and dreams take off when passion and entrepreneurship come together. Prepare to discover the keys to growing your business and achieving success through entrepreneurship and passion. Passion helps you build brand awareness within your target market that will boost sales.

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