4 Techniques to Try When You Want to Increase Brand Awareness

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is the term used to describe how familiar people are with your company and your products. This is the foundation of how you will acquire new customers and retain your current customers, by being the first company that comes into their mind when thinking about a particular product. Odds are, you’re not the only company selling the products that you sell, so there are going to be other brands that people think of when thinking about your product. When consumers are faced with the decision of who to buy from, they almost always go with the brand that is the most familiar to them, even if the unfamiliar brand offers lower prices. So what are some ways to increase the awareness of your brand?

#1: Establish Your Online Presence

Digital marketing is a group of several different types of marketing techniques that all occur online, and it is the form of marketing that consistently yields the best results for both large and small businesses. With that being said, it helps to have a strong online presence when you plan out your digital marketing strategies. Two of the simplest ways to establish your online presence are through social media and your business website.

Social Media

It’s likely that you already have one or more personal social media accounts, and the same should be true for your business. This is one of the easiest ways to start promoting your brand because social media gives you the tools to make your posts visible to more people, and when you have a business account, you have access to even more tools to help promote your business. Facebook and Instagram are two of the most popular platforms that businesses use to increase brand awareness, and both of these platforms offer campaigns that allow you to reach more people.

Websites

If you have one or more social media accounts, everything should always direct your followers/visitors back to your website. Your website is your landing page for all information that pertains to your business— even if you do most or all of your operations at a physical location. Your website is a prime tool when it comes to digital marketing strategies, such as SEO (search engine optimization) marketing and email marketing, but once you’ve established yourself as a top brand, your customers will go directly to your website, rather than finding it through social media or search engines.

#2: Partner With Others to Gain More Recognition

If you’re having trouble building your own audience, you may benefit from partnering with other people or entities to help get your name out there. There are several ways that you can go about doing this. 

Guest Posting on Blogs

Guest posting is when you write blog posts for a publication that isn’t your own. When doing this, it’s important to look for blogs whose content is relevant to your business and products. There are millions of blogs out there, and a good majority of them accept guest posts. The link for information regarding posting on a particular site is usually found at the very top or very bottom of the page. Guest posting also gives you practice writing blog posts, which is something you may want to incorporate into your own website.

Referral Programs

Your current customers can be your biggest and best advertisers when you’re just starting. Also called brand ambassadors, these loyal customers of yours promote your products on their social media accounts and also to their friends and family. This way, you get more recognition, and therefore, more people buy your products. In return, these brand ambassadors receive some type of award, such as points towards a purchase or a small commission.

Partner With Influencers

You can even go as far as to reach out to some of social media’s biggest influencers (or influencers with a large enough following) to test and promote your products. When you give free products to a person or entity in exchange for them to review and portray your products and company in a positive light is called sponsored content, which is another form of digital marketing. This technique is very popular among YouTubers, but can also be seen across all social media platforms.

#3: Promotional Products

As mentioned earlier, your current customer base can be some of your biggest marketers. They already love your products and are likely telling people they know about your brand, but you can take that to the next level with promotional products or brand merchandise. These can include things like T-shirts, hats, tote bags, coffee/tea mugs, water bottles, keychains, and many more accessories. Promotional products can be sold in addition to your regular products, or they can be free gifts that come with a customer’s purchase— which is also an incentive for your current customers to buy from you.

Keep in mind that whatever promotional products you decide to sell/give away are relevant to your brand. T-shirts are pretty universal, but you probably wouldn’t want to promote an apron if you’re a sports brand. Instead, you’d want to promote hats, water bottles, and even golf towels, if your business is associated with a specific sport. Just make sure that these products bear your company name and logo to engrave that image into the minds of those who see them.

#4: Return to Digital Marketing

Once more people have become aware of your brand, it’s time to go all-in on your digital marketing strategies. This will help increase your sales, as well as continue to increase brand awareness. Social media marketing, SEO strategies, and sponsored content are all marketing strategies that were mentioned before, but they’re not the only digital marketing strategies.

Online PR

Basically, public relations that occur online, online PR is an important marketing strategy to use, especially once you’ve created brand awareness. This is the process of engaging with not only other brands and journalists but also with your audience which includes your following on social media and your actual customers. Reply to customers when they review your products online, good or bad. This shows that you are glad that they’re enjoying your products/you care about the concerns they have regarding your products. 

Marketing Automation

This is simply the process of automating all of your marketing/advertising efforts. Email newsletters are a major example of this. This is when those customers who have subscribed to your content automatically receive emails on a regular basis. Automation can be done on your social media accounts. You can create content ahead of time and schedule it to be posted at a later date to keep your social channels active.

Paid Ads

Many small businesses may try to avoid this, but paid ads won’t break the bank. In fact, when done correctly, paid ads will get more people to your website where they can purchase your products. The most commonly used form of paid ads is PPC (pay per click), where you only have to pay for the ad if someone clicks on it.

Remember that increasing brand awareness doesn’t happen overnight, and it will take some time. The key is to be consistent to be able to get in front of enough people for your brand to start being recognizable among your competitors.

Originally posted 2021-11-11 00:33:14.