Brand awareness is all about how familiar your target market is with your brand and its product offering. It's a particularly important thing to get right, especially if your business is fairly fresh.
Some brands have great brand awareness. Simply saying their names conjures up vivid images (sometimes even smells) of what it is they sell. For example, if I say Apple, you'll likely think of sleek computer products built for creative people. Or, if I say Mcdonald's, your mouth might start watering at the thought of demolishing a nice juicy Big Mac.
Those are just two brand awareness examples from brands that got it right. And it takes a lot of time and effort to become as recognisable as heavyweight brands like Apple and Mcdonald's. But, with the right mix of knowledge, strategy and creative thinking, it can be done.
It all starts with understanding why brand awareness is important in the first place. Let's get into it.
Brand awareness is one of the most important metrics any business should track. Here's why:
Without brand awareness, your business is dead in the water. Think of it this way. People need to know that your brand exists to buy its products. It sounds obvious when you say it out loud, but this is the main goal of building brand awareness — to become known.
According to Invesp, 59% of consumers prefer to buy from brands they're familiar with. That's the majority of consumers! So, why do we see this trend?
The more familiar consumers are with a brand, the more likely they are to trust it. Brand awareness fosters this trust by giving brands a personality and a story. So, get out there and make yourself known. The people will love you for it!
Have you ever wondered how brands like Apple can charge thousands for a laptop when their competitors make similar (sometimes even better) products at much more affordable prices? Well, it's because people know about these brands and they're desired.
So, how can you use brand awareness to raise the value of your brand? Provide positive experiences for your audience! Positive experiences create positive perceptions, resulting in strong customer bonds with your brand. Over time, customers begin to favour your brand over your competitors, leading you to higher brand value.
Whether you've just launched your brand or your business needs a boost, here's how to build brand awareness:
At the heart of everything you do should be your audience. These are the people you're trying to convert. Make sure all of your messaging matches this audience, otherwise they won't listen.
With the proper research, you'll be able to craft a detailed target audience for your brand's messages. To do that, ask yourself the following questions about your target market:
Just shouting, 'I'm here! I'm here!' isn't going to do much for your brand. Yes, shoppers need to be aware of your existence, but they also need to be aware of the value you provide.
Most shoppers are looking for solutions to their problems. And it's through solving these problems that your brand provides value. So, without clearly defining the value of your brand, how are consumers to know whether or not you're the right fit?
If you're struggling to define your brand's value, ask yourself the following questions:
You know your audience, and you know your value. Now it's time to create messages that build some of that great brand awareness we've been hearing so much about! There's an endless number of ways you can go about this. However, we explore some of the more popular methods in the following section.
From ads to email, here are some great methods for building brand awareness:
Writing blog posts and articles isn't just free content for your brand. It positions you as an industry expert, dispensing valued knowledge and opinions. And the more value you provide your readers, the more people will read your blog. And more readers means more brand awareness for you!
It truly pays to become a go-to fountain of knowledge for your audience. But it's not as easy as churning out weekly or monthly articles. You always want to aim to entertain, educate or inspire your readers. Don't ask too much back from them, and avoid being overly salesy in your content.
Being part of your brand awareness campaign, you want your blog content to be easily sharable. This means that more people are likely to see it. Try including an easy to use share button on your blog posts so that readers can quickly repost your content to their socials or email it to a friend.
Finally, pair your blog content with SEO. With the right SEO strategy, your content will rank higher on major search engines such as Google and Bing. This makes your content easier to find, taking your brand awareness to the next level.
Love them or hate them, ads are a popular choice for successful brands because they work. You don't even need to build an audience first for advertising to be effective. Just pay for your ad space, and you can have your products and services advertised to millions of people around the globe.
While they can be expensive, ads are a quick and easy way to build a tonne of brand awareness. However, that doesn't mean you don't need to focus on your creative. Make sure all messaging in your ads matches the tone of voice of your target audience. And don't forget to mention all the amazing value and benefits your customers will receive by buying from you!
Did you know that it takes around 7 to 8 touch points for a consumer to properly register your brand as a legitimate option? So even if you put out an absolute cracker of an ad, you'll still need to reach that person six more times to even be considered as an option!
This is where email marketing becomes a potent tool. When you have somebody's email address, you don't need to worry about where and when they hang out online. You can just email your branded content straight to their inbox.
Email marketing over time increases your audience's familiarity with your brand while gradually educating them about what you sell. This subtly nurtures them along the customer journey until they eventually become one of your many buyers.
The biggest challenge to email marketing is actually getting the email addresses. But, we can easily get around this issue with the help of a lead magnet. If you haven't heard of them before, lead magnets are downloadable packages of content that contain industry insights or solutions to popular business problems. Implementing a feature where your audience must sign up with their email to download your content is a sure-fire way to build a healthy mailing list.
Many shoppers discover the brands they know and love through social media. Knowing this, it pays to be social. But don't just post endless promotional content. Nobody wants to see that!
Just think about it. How many times do you visit social media, specifically to view ads? For most people, the answer lies somewhere between rarely and never. So, what should you post instead?
Content not directly related to your products and services is a great start. Think about some of the problems your target audience might be facing. Then, think of ways you can help them solve these problems with social content. For example, consider posting a solution to an industry issue or providing insights on recent developments within your sector.
Another approach is to consider why people are on social media in the first place. A lot of people simply want to be entertained. So, why not post entertaining content? Think of any memes, jokes or witty takes you can create about your brand or issues facing your industry.
If you've come away from this article with anything, it should be that brand awareness is an incredibly powerful metric that your business should focus on. And while it may be daunting researching your audience and planning your content, there are tools out there to help.
Owlee is an automated advertising platform that creates and publishes ads on your behalf. All you have to do is tell Owlee a bit about your business and the products or services you wish to sell. From there, Owlee handles everything — from your campaign creation to your audience targeting to strategically timed multi-channel ad launches.
Plus, with its ability to reach hundreds of thousands of new customers across the globe, Owlee is the perfect tool for building brand awareness at scale. So, next time you plan a brand awareness campaign for your business, step up your game with Owlee.
There we have it, folks. Brand awareness in all of its magnificence. It's one of the most important metrics for any business as you have to be seen to sell. But as you now know, brand awareness goes much deeper than that. Now onwards, to brand awareness glory, readers!
We hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any questions, feel free to fire them away in the comments. While you're at it, why not share this article with a colleague or friend? Catch you next time.
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