If you were to look in my email inbox and read through all the “request a consultation” requests we get, the number one request people have is some flavor of, “How do I get my brand noticed more?”. Building brand awareness is of course critical to the success of your company. It’s also something that is difficult for many people, so if you are having issues building your brand awareness, don’t feel bad. That said, there are some tried and true best practices to establishing brand awareness, and boosting your brand, which I’d like to share with you today.
Before we do that though, let’s take a step back and quickly cover why brand awareness is so important.
Why Brand Awareness Is Important
The easiest way to describe brand awareness is by looking at it in terms of how easily the public will look at your logo, an advertisement, your product, or your website and recognize it. Establishing brand awareness, especially in the early stages of building your company is critical to your success and growth. This is because with great brand awareness comes trust. A consumer trusting your brand is everything. The more they trust it, in fact, the more likely they are to stay with your brand and become a repeat customer.
They become a repeat customer because of their recognition of your brand and their perceived value of your brand. Because they are loyal customers, they have stopped asking around about people’s opinions on competing brands or products. Instead, they start seeking out your brand. They look for it, and even if it is more expensive than other options in the market, they will purchase your brand because of their perceived value and their brand loyalty.
How To Establish Brand Awareness
As the old saying goes, “Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy”. The same is true for establishing brand awareness. Brand awareness does not happen over night. Building brand awareness requires multiple efforts, on multiple fronts (e.g. different marketing channels), telling the world the story of what you do and why it is you do what you do. The important thing to point out here is building brand awareness is telling your story, not making sales. Making sales is obviously important, but if your focus stops at simply those that are buying from you, you are doing your brand a disservice. A successful brand is one that spans beyond the recognition of your customers and is recognized by the population at large.
Again, you are telling a story. You can’t define yourself simply by being a company that “sells stuff”. You need to show your company’s personality, goals, likes, beliefs, and any other trait that will make an impact with your audience. Storytelling marketing, while daunting to some at first, is an incredibly powerful way to build brand awareness and create fanatic brand ambassadors that will virally help you grow your brand’s reach.
How To Increase Brand Awareness
Once you are on your way to establishing your brand, the easiest way to expand your brand awareness is to establish campaigns devoted to brand growth. Here are a couple of my favorite campaigns that I use to build brand awareness:
-Create Content
This one probably sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed at how few people take the time to create great content that they are willing to give people, FOR FREE. to establish their brand as the thought leader in whatever industry they are involved in. Take this blog for instance. Granted, I love writing about digital marketing, inbound marketing and branding. But, at the end of the day, I am not doing this for my health. I am offering people free tips and advice, in the hopes they will be able to grow their businesses. Some people will read what I offer, and take it from there and do it all themselves. Great for those people. Others though, may read my articles, believe in what I am writing, but decide that they need help doing these things. Because I’ve offered all this information to them, for free, with no expectation of anything in return, and because they already feel like I am an authority on the topic, when they call someone to help them with these activities, it’s going to be my firm. It’s that simple.
-Sponsor Events Related To Your Product/Service
Especially for you B2B brands out there, sponsoring industry related events is a MASSIVE way to garner attention and build your brand awareness. If you choose the right event, you will potentially be putting your brand in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people. Not only that, you are putting your brand in front of hundreds of thousands of people that would be ideal customers for you and are now becoming more familiar with your brand. Events, especially B2B events can be very time and labor intensive to participate in, but it’s one of the rare opportunities you will have so many potential customers and future brand ambassadors in one space at one time.
Building a brand is not for the faint of heart. It’s not one action that will define the path and direction of your brand. It’s relentless, never ending small steps you exercise over and over and over, without fail, in the never ending quest to tell the world your brand’s story. Have an idea on building your brand that you want to bounce off someone for feedback? Not sure where to start and might want to hire a digital agency to help you along your way? No problem! Just click the banner below and we would love to help you 🙂
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