At the basic level, the service or product you provide might be just like many others on the market. So, how do you make yourself stand out against the competition? Brand awareness is the key to directing the consumer to choose you over similar options.
Companies use brand awareness campaigns to foster familiarity among their target audience to sway their decisions. With a more in-depth understanding of this concept, you can take your business' reach and lead conversion to the next level.
Why is brand awareness important?
Raising awareness in your market allows your product or brand to attract a wider audience. If you build brand recognition within the target market, you'll be more at home with these consumers when they search for or buy the item. It will stick in their minds.
Take soda for an example: when choosing a cola product, consumers are more likely to pick brands they're familiar with, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Often, brand awareness can even convince somebody to choose you over a less expensive alternative - take the generic grocery store branded cola, for instance.
What is a brand awareness campaign?
Brand awareness campaigns are marketing campaigns specifically intended to introduce consumers to new products and services to build popularity. Unlike other traditional marketing campaigns, their success focused more on impressions and engagement than actual sales. You want to use this strategy to put yourself out there and get noticed.
Why should you use social media for brand awareness?
If you intend to build brand awareness, your social media channels will be your most powerful tools. If you think about numbers alone, the amount of new consumers you can reach through social media is astronomically huge compared to those you could reach with other methods.
Social media also allows you to use your unique voice, aesthetic and values to advertise for you. Repeatedly seeing your logo, tagline, color scheme or other elements of your brand will build familiarity - even if it's just a simple ad. However, using a social media platform to provide high-quality, sharable content will extend your reach while adding value.
How can I measure brand awareness?
There are multiple variables involved in determining brand recognition. Luckily, if you're using social media, you already have access to valuable analytics tools to gauge your success. The primary data used to measuring brand awareness include:
- Overall website traffic.
- Branded search volume (e.g., typing in "Target" instead of www.target.com).
- Social media mentions.
- Social media engagement (e.g., likes, comments, shares, retweets, views, etc.).
How to increase brand awareness
Now you know the tools to use, but how do you use them in your brand awareness strategy? A great deal of generating brand awareness is educating your audience about your brand. Similar to your other marketing efforts, you want to communicate why they should choose you over the competition. Ideally, you want to show them rather than tell them.
Some excellent ideas for increasing brand awareness might include participating in, hosting or sponsoring events in your community. Supporting and interacting with local businesses, both online and offline, will also create positive association with your brand. High-quality guest posting is another way to boost brand awareness online.
While these strategies can be incredibly helpful in building brand awareness, you'll still need to follow the best practices of any marketing campaign. To raise brand awareness, you'll need to stick to a brand voice, brand message and brand values to educate your customers.
It's also important to remember that good brand awareness can take time. Focusing your efforts on social media platforms to improve brand awareness is effective, but won't get results overnight. However, with a solid understanding of how brand building works, your efforts will certainly pay off.
