Have you ever noticed that consumers looking to make a purchase are typically turning to the brand that readily comes to their minds?
This is exactly what brand awareness is. When a product is the first one to come to your mind when ready to make a purchase, it means you are fully aware and informed about what that brand has to offer.
Simply put, brand awareness is a measure of how well consumers know a brand.
For example, think of how many times you have heard, “Excuse me, could you pass me a Kleenex, please?”.
For many years now, people have called a facial tissue Kleenex. The term “Kleenex” has become interchangeable with “tissue” regardless of what actual tissue brand people use.
It’s the same with Xerox, ChapStick, or Coke. You would be surprised at some other brands that have become generic terms for a specific class of products or services, such as Allen wrench, Frisbee, or Band-Aid. Even today, these words are trademarked.
What do all these brands have in common? Top-of-mind awareness. They rank so well in the minds of consumers that people use them to describe any brand in a product category.
But with so many brands available, you must strive to build brand awareness in today’s cut-throat market. Otherwise, you risk missing a big boat and losing your competitive advantage.
So with that being said, let’s explore the top advantages of brand awareness and some nifty tips to make consumers more aware of your brand.
Table of contents:
1. Top Benefits of Increased Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is a cornerstone for all your marketing efforts.
Marketers know that brand awareness is a critical aspect of marketing campaigns. According to Smart Insights, 70% of marketers claim building brand awareness is their top goal for social media strategies.
If you are a small business owner who needs to wear many hats, you may be too busy managing a whole heap of day-to-day operations to give much thought to the concept of brand awareness.
However, once you understand the benefits of keeping your brand top of mind and how brand awareness helps you outperform your peers, you may begin to rethink your marketing strategy.
An informed and consistent brand awareness campaign will bring the following benefits to your business:
- Gain a competitive edge: If you are the first to the punch in getting your brand stuck into consumers’ minds, you will be able to outperform your competitors.
- Increase sales: With a third of consumers already having a brand in mind when they go shopping, it’s easy to understand how brand awareness directly impacts your sales. It might seem obvious, but no one will buy from a brand if they don’t know it exists.
- Build trust: Brand awareness establishes trust and improves brand perception. As it creates positive associations, brand awareness has the power to change how people think about your business.
- Feed the top of your sales funnel: In order to build a winning sales funnel, you need to focus on getting your brand in front of potential costumes. When you build brand awareness, you are actually feeding the top of your sales funnel (ToFu) by attracting more leads.
- Drive traffic to your website: Effective brand awareness campaigns boost organic traffic, which can position your website higher in search results.
- Increase word-of-mouth marketing: Customers aware of your brand and having a positive, personalised customer experience with your business can be great brand advocates. Happy customers are more likely to spread your brand’s message among their friends and family.
- Ramp up customer loyalty: Brand awareness builds trust, and trust goes hand in hand with customer loyalty. The more you keep your brand top of mind, the more you get repeat customers that stick around.
- Build equity: Brand equity represents the value of your brand that goes beyond your physical assets. That value is determined by customer perception and experiences with your brand. When customers are aware of your brand, the perceived worth of your brand increases, meaning that brand awareness has a direct impact on brand equity.
- Lower customer acquisition costs: Marketing is getting more expensive. According to a ProfitWell study, the cost of acquiring new customers has increased 60% in the last few years. Luckily, increased brand awareness helps you attract customers through low (or even no cost) strategies.
With that in mind, let’s explore some easy and effective ways to establish brand awareness among your audience and build successful campaigns to supercharge your marketing efforts.
2. 7 Surefire Ways to Build Brand Awareness
Building brand awareness doesn’t happen overnight. However, creating a bond between your brand and consumers doesn’t necessarily need to be a tough undertaking.
Here are some realistic strategies to establish brand awareness without spending millions.
- Improve your SEO rankings
A technical endeavour such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) may seem intimidating. In one of my previous posts (you can find it here), I have outlined some tips you can apply right now to rank higher in search results even if you’re not an SEO wiz.
SEO and brand awareness go together. Ranking on Google’s first page helps you gain visibility and authority, which increases your brand awareness and recognition in the market.
- Define your unique brand voice
A brand is much more than a name or a logo. Defining a unique brand voice that resonates with your audience helps your business stand out and makes your brand easily recognisable.
Whether it’s funny, emotional or formal, your brand voice builds consistency among your content and social media channels and goes a long way when it comes to increasing brand awareness.
In this post, you will find some valuable tips on how to build a powerful brand and define a unique brand voice.
- Start your own podcast
After the Covid-19 outbreak, businesses worldwide have started to slowly open up to the power of podcasting.
According to Podcast Insights, there are over two million active podcasts and over 48 million podcast episodes as of April 2021.
Business podcasts enable listeners to become familiar with a brand’s voice, which in turn increases brand awareness. Therefore, starting your own podcast gives you a great opportunity to share your expertise in your niche and establish brand awareness among your audience.
- Harness the power of social media
Today, it’s hard to imagine businesses without social media.
Maybe it goes without saying or maybe not, but being active on social media goes a long way in building brand awareness.
Whether you are using engaging content, influencers, interactions with your followers, or referrals, social media has proven to be a critical factor in creating meaningful and genuine connections with customers and making a brand stick in customers’ minds.
- Use PPC advertising
PPC, or pay-per-click, is an advertising model in which advertisers place ads on a platform and pay a fee each time users click their ads.
Introducing your brand in ads your audience can see is a quick and effective way to get it in front of the right people.
What is great about PPC advertising is that it allows you to segment your audience and create personalised ads for each group of individuals you are targeting.
- Make your business look more trustworthy and legitimate
For small businesses, brand awareness poses larger challenges.
When you’re small and starting out, you’re likely to be more focused on getting your business up and running.
However, every early-stage startup needs a well-rounded strategy to pave its way for long-term success. That’s why you must create a level of awareness for your brand and tell people who you are and what you’re doing from day one.
At this stage, increasing brand awareness goes hand in hand with making your business appear more trustworthy. If your business doesn’t look legitimate and credible, it won’t be able to stick in the minds of consumers.
The quickest and easiest way to give your business an instant reputation upgrade and establish credibility is to get a professional virtual office that provides you with all the necessary tools to build a memorable brand.
- Hold an event
Holding an event gives your audience the opportunity to experience your brand’s look, feel, and personality.
Whether you hold an interactive, fundraising, workshop, brand anniversary, or just-for-fun event, you have the chance to put your brand in the spotlight and get the attention of clients and prospects.
Remember, customers are buying the experience, not just the products. Successful events give people a positive experience which can significantly increase brand awareness and drive more sales.
Conclusion: Brand awareness is paramount to the success of your business because it enables brand growth.
Without brand awareness, customers wouldn’t be able to find your business or trust your offering. Luckily, you have a wide range of cost-effective tools at your disposal to ensure the success of your brand awareness campaigns.
Hopefully, the tips provided in this post will help you get your message heard and establish your brand in the minds of consumers.
If you’re still looking for ways to make your startup look bigger and more legitimate, it costs you nothing to try out a B2B HQ virtual office. You’d be surprised to see how a professional business address (among a myriad of other essential services) will instantly make your customers associate your brand with positive qualities and traits and increase your brand awareness.
