Can you recall the brands that you interacted with today while scrolling on your phone? Digital marketing experts estimate Americans see between 6,000 and 10,000 ads each day. With so much noise and competition, companies need to get creative if they want to increase their brand awareness and stand out from the crowd. Let’s explore 6 ways you can boost your brand awareness this year.
What Is Brand Awareness?
Before we dive in, let’s review the basics:
Brand awareness is the extent to which an audience is able to recognize and recall a company’s branding, products, and services.
An important piece of brand awareness is brand recognition. As you probably guessed, this is the consumers’ ability to recognize a brand’s logo, colors, and taglines and assign them to a specific business.
For example, picture the iconic Swoosh logo you likely see in many stores. Immediately, you probably associate the logo with Nike. While small businesses may not be able to achieve the same level of brand notoriety as Nike overnight, they should consistently execute campaigns to cultivate brand awareness.
Brand awareness is a crucial focus of marketing because it directly influences customers’ buying decisions. The more aware a customer is of your brand, the more likely it is that they’ll buy from you. Brand awareness also promotes trust, differentiates brands from competitors in the market, and contributes to more leads and sales.
Here are six ways that you can increase your company’s brand awareness.
1. Drive Brand Awareness Through Your Content
Creating free, educational content is one of the best ways to increase awareness of your brand. Your potential customers have questions, concerns, and issues that they turn to the internet to solve. By writing an informational blog post, producing a downloadable guide, or filming a short video that answers your audience’s most pressing questions, you’ll not only satisfy a need but also build brand recognition. The more valuable content you produce, the greater the likelihood you’ll make an authentic connection with your potential buyers.
Content is also a great vehicle for showcasing your brand’s voice and personality, which helps your company seem more human and approachable. Audiences that relate to your message will share it with others, which gets your brand in front of more people.
Content should not only be found on your website— it should be shared in multiple forms for maximum exposure. Guest posting and sponsored content are two types of long-form content that can help expand your reach to broader audiences. By leveraging a publication’s follower base, you’ll be discovered by an entirely new group of buyers. Plus, you’ll benefit from the publisher including your brand’s name in the byline and backlinking to your website.
2. Build Awareness With Strong SEO
Speaking of your brand’s online presence— Is your company’s website easily found? Search engine optimization (SEO) plays an important role in increasing brand awareness. The higher your website ranks in search engine results, the easier it will be for potential customers to find you.
If your website is not found on the first page of a Google search, don’t feel discouraged. You can improve your domain authority through keyword research, high-quality content, and link building. Here are steps you can follow to optimize your content for brand awareness:
First, research keywords people are using in searches to discover products or services like yours. You can use tools like Moz and Google Search Console to find these keywords.
Then, produce top-of-the-funnel content around those keywords. For example, if you’re a tea retailer and people are searching for “best black teas,” you might want to write a blog post titled, “The 7 Best Black Teas.”
Finally, include your keywords in the content headline, body, and image titles so it’s easier for search engines to discover your blog post.
As more people find your valuable content, they’ll be compelled to share it and backlink to your site. Both, in turn, improve your search performance.
3. Cultivate Brand Awareness Through a Podcast
With 68 million Americans listening to podcasts weekly, it’s easy to see the value and potential podcasts have in spreading brand awareness. Similar to blog posts, podcasts serve as a form of value-driven content.
Whether their purpose is to educate, entertain, or inform, podcasts allow brands to connect with customers on a deeper, more personal level. They (literally) give brands a voice and an opportunity to position themselves as a thought leader in their industry. Podcasts are also accessible on-demand, which allows brands to tell their story any time of the day, anywhere there are captive audiences.
One example of a successful branded podcast is Rise & Grind, produced by ZipRecruiter. Host Daymond John, Shark Tank investor and founder of FUBU, asks different entrepreneurs in each episode how they overcome challenges and find success. Each guest offers insights and wisdom on business learnings and hard work. Your brand should consider modeling its podcast off this example because the podcast theme ties back perfectly to the brand.
4. Boost Brand Awareness By Being Social
Regularly engaging in conversations with audiences on social media is a proven way to increase awareness of your brand. Wendy’s, the fast-food restaurant chain, is hailed as a game-changer in the social media realm for doing exactly this. Their snarky replies and roasts helped them gain 1.2 million followers in one year alone.
In addition to participating in discussions, brands can generate more attention by regularly posting eye-catching, sharable content to social media. Branded infographics, quotes, and memes that are relatable to a target audience will get more shares than purely promotional posts.
Hosting contests or giveaways on social media also draws in more engagement and new customers. Everyone loves prizes and freebies! Asking your community to tag friends in your post as part of a free contest allows your brand to reach new audiences.
5. Partner with Influencers to Grow Your Brand Awareness
Making friends with influencers is another easy and effective way to boost awareness of your brand. Influencers generally have a massive following on social media. That’s why it’s beneficial to use their services to expand your brand’s reach.
Whether through product placement, testimonials, or giveaways, digital influencers get your brand in front of more people and help drive more traffic to your social media account or website. The key is to find influencers who produce relevant content in your industry or niche to ensure that their network will closely align with your ideal target audience.
6. Connect With a Branding Agency to Generate Awareness
If you need help executing any or all of these tactics, consider employing a branding firm that is on top of branding best practices.
Jennasis & Associates is a digital marketing and branding agency that can help you with social media management, branding, and content marketing so that you can focus more of your time and attention on managing your business or organization. Contact us to learn more today.
