Investing time and resources into building brand awareness is an ideal way to differentiate your company from the rest of your competition. In a few words, brand awareness has something to do with your business’ reputation. It is the extent to which someone can recognize your brand, which is one part of achieving your marketing goals. Your brand is what makes you unique and different from the rest, so building brand awareness is a crucial segment in your company’s overall success.
Most businesses nowadays aim at reaching out to their target group of people by avoiding aggressive promotion and instead opt for a variety of subtle ways to intrigue and engage their potential audience. These methods are cost-effective, non-forceful, and they help a brand build trust and create long-term relationships with its customers. Besides, implementing certain subtle techniques in your brand recognition strategy can have a snowball effect if the content goes viral.
Even though there isn’t a shortcut for becoming a ‘household’ name, there are several brand-building strategies which will help you launch your brand and stand out from the rest of the pack.
Build relationships with influencers
One of the most successful methods for building brand awareness is investing in influencer marketing. The power of this method lies in the trust that the influencer’s audience has in them. Look for relevant influencers who would be interested in your product or service. Then, offer them free products to try out and ask for feedback. If they like your products, see if they would be interested in promoting them to their audience.
Another alternative approach to influencer marketing is to boost your brand through existing influencers in the same industry. Do research on influencers whose business you could complement instead of competing with. Building a partnership with a company that speaks to a similar audience can prove to be extremely beneficial, especially if you manage to find mutually valuable and useful ways of reaching each other’s customers.
Make the most out of the good old-fashioned freebies
It doesn’t matter if you own a startup business or a large company if you want to generate brand recognition nowadays, having a website is a must. There is no excuse not to get online, but you shouldn’t forget to venture offline either. Even if you are an owner of an entirely digital brand, bear in mind that there is really no substitute for the recognition provided by real-life experiences.
Hosting or participating in relevant events is a great way to build brand awareness in the offline world. Regardless of the type of your business, participating in a variety of events, like conferences, Christmas bashes, fund-raising events for a good social cause or even being part of a movement in your niche will help your brand provide a memorable experience. What is important at these events is to make sure that you give away free items. Everyone loves gifts, and having a physical reminder of a brand, like a pen, pack of cards, or an id lanyard can be a great idea to have in a gift bag. It’s an old marketing tactic, but a golden one proved to be of big use in promoting a business.
The importance of being present online
Online presence is one of the few cost-effective approaches to building brand awareness. It gives you an opportunity to directly reach your potential clients and answer their questions right away. There is an array of free tools online that can be used to check what is driving people to certain sites and to find out what your audience is doing.
A great and at the same very subtle way to get your brand known online is to write outstanding content to share on other prominent blogs, visited by a varied audience. Contributing with content to relevant blogs will give you an opportunity to attract your target audience to your own blog which would be extended with several social media channels in order to achieve greater engagement and earn the customer’s trust in the brand.
Once you attract an audience to your blog and social media channels, you can design and launch polls or contests whose purpose would be to get feedback and spark interest for your brand. You could ask people to submit funny photos, vote their favorites or tag friends. Contestants will then share the relevant link to their relatives, friends and even distant acquaintances to win votes. This is how you can automatically, yet again subtly promote your brand.
Referral Programs
Implementing a referral program into your brand-awareness strategy is an excellent way to gain more customers and promote your business. Users will surely want to spread the word about your products or services once they find out they would get an incentive. Referral programs have helped many well-known businesses flourish rapidly. If you already have a loyal audience, provide them with a chance to share your brand with friends and family. When someone refers to your brand with a friend and gets an incentive in return, both sides get something out of it.
Make your business stand out from the crowd
A brand means something only when it’s recognized by the customer. Good quality branding allows you to attract new customers, hold on to the old ones, and gives you a chance to differentiate yourself from the rest of the competition. However, before your target audience could recognize your brand, they have to know it exists. Creating the right strategy will allow you to continually expand your brand in the long run, so make sure you use these carefully planned and subtle methods to improve brand awareness. Bear in mind that building brand recognition doesn’t happen overnight, and you need to put in constant effort to achieve better results.
