How to build a brand awareness strategy that works? How to identify key tactics and activities to make your brand more recognizable and to reach wider audience? How to make sure that your brand is credible and trustworthy?
These are just some of the questions we will be answering in this blog. Keep reading to discover 8 best ways to boost your brand’s recognition, increase sales, and generate more revenue for your business!
What Should Every Brand Awareness Strategy Entail?
Even though there is no single definition of brand awareness, it’s pretty clear what it means:
Brand awareness is the extent to which people are aware of (or recognize) your brand.
Building a brand awareness strategy is a crucial part of every marketing strategy and it entails answering questions such as:
- What are our goals and KPIs?
- Who is our target audience (buyer persona)?
- How can we reach our target audience?
- Which channels, marketing tactics, and specific campaigns can we use?
- What type of content best resonates with our target audience?
- How will we measure the success of our brand awareness strategy?
When building a brand awareness strategy, most marketers struggle with setting up proper measurements and KPIs. Even though most marketers today are measured on conversions, it is not always possible to put a number behind a brand awareness campaign.
For example, we can’t always define a clear ROI when buying a billboard space or launching an awareness display campaign.
Still, brand awareness activities should not be neglected. In the long run, they can have a significant impact on your overall marketing strategy. According to research, 77% of B2B marketers say branding is crucial for growth.
Why Is It Important to Have a Brand Awareness Strategy
Building a strong brand is one of the main priorities for marketers across the globe. There is plenty of research that proves the power of building a recognizable brand.
Hence, having a structured brand awareness strategy is a must! Understanding your audience and delivering personalized content via the right channels can go a long way in improving your brand recognition, driving more sales, and generating more revenue.
Furthermore, many companies invest in their brands with the goal to attract investors. According to research, 82% of investors say name recognition is an important factor guiding them in their investment decisions.
Building the right brand awareness strategy can also boost customer loyalty and increase the loyal customers’ overall spending. Based on research, 43% of customers spend more money on brands they are loyal to.
Last but not least, strong brands are much more successful in attracting and retaining their employees because they have strong employer brands as well.
Did you know that over 90% of people would consider leaving their job if offered a position in a company with an outstanding corporate reputation? Furthermore, having a great brand can bring the expenses related to hiring and training down by as much as 50%.
8 Ways to Boost Your Company’s Brand Awareness
There are many different ways to boost your company’s brand awareness. However, there are certain tactics that should make it to the list of every brand awareness strategy.
Let’s take a look at them.
1. Build a recognizable and consistent brand
First and foremost, it is crucial that your brand is recognizable, unique, and consistent across various marketing channels.
According to numerous psychological research, color can have an unbelievable impact on brand recognition. When defining your brand, be careful about choosing colors, as they can improve brand recognition by up to 80%.
Furthermore, make sure that your brand’s style and appearance are consistent. Even though presenting a brand consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%, only 48% of employees believe their leadership team, corporate communications, HR, and marketing departments all speak about their brand with a unique voice.
2. Experiment with paid advertising
Paid advertising on channels such as Google or social media is probably the fastest way to boost your brand’s recognition and reach a wide audience. This is particularly true for display advertising and social media marketing.
To get the most out of your paid ads strategy, just make sure that you understand your audience and set up proper targeting on these platforms.
Because when done right, brand awareness can be increased by up to 80% through Google paid ads.
💡 Learn about the best ways to boost engagement on your social media profiles!
3. Invest in SEO and content marketing
Did you know that 53% of businesses rely on content marketing as a branding strategy?
Compared to paid ads, SEO and content marketing take longer to bring results. In the long run, however, it pays off!
Most people today use Google to search for products and services. Showing high on Google search results is, therefore, a crucial part of every brand awareness strategy.
This is not surprising as brands that blog generate 67% more leads.
💡 Also check our guide for generating more high quality leads!
4. Investigate joint co-marketing activities
There are probably many brands out there with the exact same target audience as yours but they are not your competitors. Why not joining forces with them to leverage each other’s existing networks.
For example, if your company produces baby strollers, you could do so co-marketing campaigns with companies that produce other baby products such as toys.
If you are in a B2B tech business targeting developers with your code testing platform, you could join forces with another tech company that also targets developers.
Whatever your use case is, co-marketing is a great way to boost you brand awareness strategy!
5. Leverage influencer and customer marketing
Influencer marketing has been growing in its popularity in the past decade. The fact that 93% of marketers have used influencer marketing in their campaigns proves the power of influencer marketing in increasing brand awareness and sales. According to research, 60% of marketers say that influencer-generated content performs better and drives more engagement compared to branded posts.
In B2C business, micro and nono influencers are now particularly popular in social media marketing. These influencers know how to build trust with their audiences and they can certainly impact their buying decisions.
6. Build an employee advocacy program
One of the most efficient yet least expensive ways to boost your brand’s reach and recognition is employee advocacy. This is particularly true for large organizations with thousand of employees who engage in social selling activities. Having employee as brand ambassadors is like a goldmine; employees can leverage their own networks to talk about your products and services and attract new customers.
According to Edelman Trust Barometer, customers perceive staff as more trustworthy than corporate marketing. Another research shows that, on average, an employee advocacy program involving 1,000 active participants can generate $1,900,000 in advertising value.
Impressive isn’t it?
7. Pay special attention to customer service
73% of consumers love a brand because of helpful customer service!
Moreover, some brands are best known for their outstanding customer service. So providing exceptional customer experience can be one of the most efficient brand awareness and brand recognition strategies.
Even though every company should care about their customers, not every organization considers it a crucial marketing tactic. On the other hand, some brands such as Zappos are most known for the amazing experience they provide to every customer.
8. Don’t forget about offline marketing
For some industries, offline marketing such as print, radio, events, and TV are still some of the most efficient brand awareness channels.
When combined with digital, for example, a brand’s ROI can increase by 60%. TV ads also influence online brand search by up to 80%, as viewers look up a product or service after seeing an ad.
For example, if you are in the retail industry or targeting an older population, TV may be the best way to reach and influence your target audience.
The Power of Brand Ambassadorship In Building Brand Awareness
As mentioned earlier, brand ambassadorship can be the best way to improve your brand’s awareness and reach your target audience. Brand ambassadors can be various influencers, your customers, and your own employees.
When it comes to influencers, they can be quite expensive, while customers may be hard to engage with. On the other hand, many employees are already acting as your ambassadors without you even knowing about it and understanding the impact of it.
In order to make employee brand advocacy work, it is important to build a structured program. Such programs should consist of clear policies and procedures, guides to help employees be ambassadors, recognition systems to reward best ambassadors, and tracking systems to measure the impact of ambassadorship on brand awareness.
However, without the right technology, all this becomes a mission impossible!
Want to learn more? Check out our social media policy template!
