1 Idea – 1 Challenge – 1 Quote
Idea From Me
Business success is often determined by how well-recognized and trusted a company’s brand is. To build a strong brand, businesses need to focus on creating a brand awareness strategy as part of brand building. There are several ways businesses can go about building brand awareness.
In this article, we’ll take a look at what brand awareness is, the importance of brand awareness and how to create brand awareness, including examples of marketing campaigns you can use to build brand awareness for your business brand. By the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of what brand awareness is and how to build brand awareness for your business.
What brand awareness is about
Brand awareness is the extent to which consumers are familiar with a particular brand and its associated products or services. Brand awareness is the level of consumer recognition of a brand. It is often measured as the percentage of consumers who are aware of the brand and can correctly identify it when they see it. Brand awareness is a key driver of brand equity, which is the value derived from a brand. Brand awareness is crucial for any brand, whether you sell a traditional product like a soft drink or have an online affiliate or referral program.
Coca-Cola has global brand awareness. When we get thirsty Coca-Cola comes to mind as part of the top few brands that can satisfy the need – called the evoked or consideration set. Similarly, your brand should form part of the consideration set of your target market when they experience a need that your brand can satisfy.
The importance of brand awareness
Building brand awareness is essential for large and small businesses that want to create a strong and lasting relationship with their customers.
It all starts with your brand identity (what your brand stands for) and visual identity (brand name, symbol, design, etc) that will identify your brand and distinguish it from other brands. Brand awareness is one of the most fundamental aspects of marketing and there are many benefits to having a strong brand awareness campaign.
It can help to increase customer brand recognition and recall, build customer loyalty, and ultimately lead to more sales.
How to create brand awareness
There are a few key things to keep in mind when planning a brand awareness marketing campaign, including your target consumer, the content being communicated and measuring the performance of the campaign.
Target market
The first step is to clearly understand your target audience and customer base so that you can target the right audience. This will help you determine what type of messaging and channels will most effectively reach them. Will a formal, excited or humorous tone work best? Do your customers ‘hang out’ on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn?
Content
Be sure to create consistent, high-quality content that accurately reflects your brand identity. This content should be engaging and interesting enough to capture attention and encourage word-of-mouth sharing.
Measure
It’s important to be able to track and measure your campaign’s success. This will allow you to make adjustments as necessary and ensure that your efforts are working towards the goals you set out in the first place. Be sure to have a plan in place for when your campaign is complete. Whether you intend to repeat the ad campaign or move on to something new, always end your campaigns with a clear plan of action.
Start with the basics
Make sure your branding is on point. This means having clarity about what your brand stands for so that you can develop a strong, clear message and consistent visuals that accurately reflect your brand identity. You can’t build a clear and strong brand if you’re not conveying the right message from the start.
Spread the word
Once you are clear about your core brand associations and visuals, you need to communicate this to your target audience. There are several ways to do this, including advertising, content marketing, social media marketing, public relations, event marketing, etc.
Advertising is one of the most direct and visible ways to build brand awareness. When done correctly, advertising can raise consumer awareness of a brand and its products or services while also creating an emotional connection with potential customers.
Content marketing is a very popular method of creating brand awareness and is all about creating valuable, relevant content that attracts and engages your target audience. This can be in the form of blog posts (like the one you are reading), infographics, ebooks, webinars – really anything that provides value and helps people solve their problems. I believe that sharing valuable content should not be an end in itself. Rather, it creates brand awareness (top of the funnel) and should be paired with a lead generation and conversion strategy (bottom of the funnel).
Social media is a great way to reach your target audience and it is low cost, not no cost as many want us to believe. Essentially, you’re creating a brand presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and other social sites to make people aware of your brand, share what your brand stands for over time, introduce new products and drive traffic to your website where they can learn even more about what you do.
Examples of effective brand awareness, marketing strategies and advertising campaigns
If you’re looking to increase brand awareness for your business, there are several different campaigns you can run for the best results. You can do brand marketing specifically to communicate your brand’s identity and not what you offer, but your offering marketing can also and should also be wrapped with your brand’s identity so that any marketing is part brand marketing. A few examples of effective brand awareness campaigns:
1. Social media posts: Use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are some of the best ways to reach out to potential customers and followers. Make sure to post engaging content that will get people talking about your brand. Social media is good to attract new audiences. A social media contest is a great example as are display ads and video ads to enhance brand awareness online.
2. Influencer marketing: Work with popular influencers in your industry to promote your brand on their channels. This can help you reach a whole new audience and get people talking about your business.
3. Content marketing: Create helpful and interesting blog posts, infographics, videos or other types of content that will introduce people to your brand. Share this content across your social media channels and make sure it’s optimised for search engines (SEO) so people can easily find it online – this is important for potential new customers.
4. Live streaming is a great, but somewhat daunting, way to promote your business. It’s a more personal way of connecting with customers, and it gives them the chance to ask questions and give feedback.
5. Digital marketing is a great way to keep in touch with your customers and interact with them on social media. You can also run webinars and email campaigns to help people find out more about your products and services.
6. Surveys are a great way to get feedback from your customers. You can use the data to improve your business, and it’s also a good way to keep in touch with customers.
7. Blogging is a great way to engage with customers online. You can use it as an opportunity to share your expertise and stay in touch with your audience.
8. Loyalty programs are a great way to keep customers coming back for more.
Your brand needs to be in the right places at the right time to be noticed.
Creating brand awareness is critical for the success of any brand and improves the success of marketing efforts. Most importantly you should internalise the importance of creating brand awareness continuously. Whether you’re a startup or an established enterprise, it’s critical to have a well-thought-out plan to create brand awareness to be the first brand that comes to mind (top of mind) within the category you operate in. And it does not have to be complicated.
Your next step following on from brand awareness is creating a brand image.
Creating brand awareness feeds into the How to create a brand strategy blueprint so check it out.
Challenge To You
Develop a schedule for your different brand awareness campaigns that is sustainable for the long-term based on your resources. Once you have added all your current campaigns you will get into a rhythm. Consistency wins in the long run.
Quote
We generally think of brands in terms of products and services, but causes can also be brands – and need brand awareness.
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” -Eckart Tolle
Let’s BRAND FOR SUCCESS!
Pieter Steenkamp, BrandDoctor
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Meet Dr Pieter Steenkamp, your BRAND FOR SUCCESS guide.
I am actually a brand doctor with a PhD in brand management from University of Stellenbosch Business School. As a brand management lecturer and researcher at a university in Cape Town South Africa and a regular visiting professor at universities in Germany, I stay up to date with the latest brand management developments. This affords me the incredible opportunity to consult with leaders of some of the most admired brands.
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