“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos
How do people respond when you claim to be a specific brand? Do they smirk and laugh out loud? Or do they scurry to their seats to hear you talk? Whatever your answer might be, it should tell you the level of awareness surrounding your brand.
Brand awareness is assessing how conversant your customers are with your brand and how quickly they could pick your brand out from many others.
It’s not uncommon to see businesses carry out brand awareness when they are just starting. It’s always nice to weigh the popularity of your brand among your target customers, but it’s worth noting that brand awareness data can be quite shadowy. It’s certainly not some meter that churns out numbers, and this isn’t quite favorable to many businesses.
Benefits of Brand Awareness
Despite the immeasurable nature of brand awareness, it has a lot of benefits associated with it. Here are some of them:
Trust
Customers are becoming more sensitive to the brands they associate with. They are less open-minded and tend to prefer conducting their research.
Some customers base their decision on third-party opinions, and ads aren’t even considered.
With brand awareness, you can deduce the perception of customers regarding your brand and bring them into the fold. This could culminate in customers trusting your brand if you do the right things.
Through brand awareness, you can put your brand in the mind of customers, understand their fears, and allay such fears by doing things differently.
Loyalty comes naturally
With brand awareness, customer loyalty tends to occur without much prodding, especially if they trust your brand. People tend to stick to their preferred brand, even when there are others with more favorable prices.
Brand equity goes up
How customers view your brand from previous interactions says a lot about its value, and this is precisely what brand equity is all about. If most customers are overwhelmingly positive about your brand, its equity goes up. And the good thing about brand equity is that price tends to rise with it.
There’s also the opportunity to grow your business as the brand equity spikes
Practical ways of growing your brand awareness
If you intend to build strong brand awareness, you’ll need to be consistent and intentional about it. Don’t expect any changes after a single attempt or by advertising your products on social media platforms – a few sales are the carrots dangling at the end of that financially draining tunnel.
Here are ways to improve your brand awareness:
Communicate with your target audience
Brand awareness is about putting your brand name on the lips of your target customers. Nothing boosts your brand awareness campaign than keeping up with your customers. Interact with them on a personal level.
Get to know them, communicate with them, and let the discussion be far-reaching beyond your company’s services.
For instance, Netflix has gained widespread brand awareness through its level of interaction on social media platforms. The streaming site might have spent massively on advertisements, but their consistent brand awareness campaigns played a massive role in their brand equity.
Offer something for free
Everyone likes freebies, potential customers inclusive. The idea behind offering a product or service for free is to hook customers, and let them have a feel of what your brand is capable of. Depending on the product or service, you can have customers spread the word after using your service.
An ebook is a great freebie you can use to gain brand awareness but continue to build your brand by collecting their email address and emailing them.
A free trial is a good example where test-running a service could convert a potential customer to a repeat client. The service must be outstanding; else, customers will jump ship once the trial period is over.
Viral content works like magic
If you want to improve your brand awareness, you should consider creating content about your brand that can spread like wildfire. More people get to see such content during to how often it is shared across multiple social media platforms.
The good thing about creating viral content is that customers that aren’t in your brand’s radar get to see such content, letting them know your brand and what you represent.
The nature of viral content depends on your target audience, but many brands have taken a liking for infographics as they are more captivating compared to regular text articles.
Add value
Modern-day customers are addicted to value than anything else. If your brand awareness campaign isn’t offering value, it will be difficult convincing them to cut ties with rival brands and make the switch to yours.
There are different ways to add value to the lives of customers. You can create ebooks that are packed with information that customers will find useful. YouTube videos and podcasts can also be used to provide helpful tips that your target audience can take advantage of.
Brand collaborations can help
No brand is an island, and yours shouldn’t be any different. If a particular brand appears to have massive brand awareness, and you feel collaborations will favor both parties, then reach out to such a brand for further discussions.
Partnerships of this kind are always a win-win, though the less popular brand tends to gain more from the increased visibility.
Referral programs do work
Your brand’s awareness can also be influenced positively through a well-planned referral program. Getting customers to refer their friends and family for massive discounts has always been an effective marketing strategy, and it can also boost your brand awareness campaign.
With nearly 50% of US consumers affirming that they got to know about certain brands through their family and friends, setting up an efficient referral program can help your brand leverage this goldmine.
Final Thoughts
The potency of brand awareness in the growth of your enterprise can’t be overemphasized. An effective brand awareness campaign makes marketing your brand less strenuous as customers are familiar with your brand. And this could reduce the financial deficit associated with selling your brand.
Stick to the tips highlighted in this piece, and it shouldn’t be long before your brand acquires a cult-like following with unswerving loyalty.
