Your business is what you do, what you produce, and how you serve your customers. The way the customers see you and what you provide is referred to as awareness, while a brand is your unique way of offering and communicating value.
Consequently, brand awareness refers to instant recognition of specific features and their association with the brand’s personality, which distinguish it from others in the niche.
In short, brand awareness means people know what you stand for.
A well-established brand brings in return business and sears in brand loyalty. It creates credibility, trust, and the confidence that you’ll deliver on your promise without deterioration in quality, so customers know what they paid for.
Customers vote with their dollars, and they are more likely to vote for you and stand by you, regardless of how the business landscape shifts or the fad wind blows.
As a business owner, you want better ways to boost brand Awareness, and all it takes to improve it is trying out some things you haven’t tried before.
So let’s dive into a few creative tips and hacks that will help you cement your ethos, who you are, and what you do in the minds of your existing and potential customers.
Exploit the Social Media Machine
To increase awareness, your best bet is to go where the crowd is, a place with an infrastructure for them to do so. Post-digital revolution, social media platforms are that place.
Use social media to get your name, logo, products, and story out there.
In addition to being far cheaper than taking out huge centerfold ads in large magazines or a prime time slot on TV and radio, social media posts are also effective.
Visibility breeds awareness, but it is not enough.
Back it up with quality content and offer additional value, such as prizes, discounts, freebies, or privileged access to something of interest to your customers.
For example, set up a contest or a challenge.
Include tag-a-friend in the contest to double the interest right away, or tag-a-few, for that matter. It’s a great fun way to engage people and entice some good positive competition.
Don’t be stingy. Make the reward worth it and make contestants covet it.
It would be a good idea for the competition to entail the audience producing content as well. That’s a win-win for you.
Become a Hashtag
Uniqueness and differentiation are crucial parts of branding, so create a unique hashtag relating to your business. The hashtag may contain the name of your business, but it doesn’t have to.
If your company is small or new on the market, hashtagging a name and a short core idea is often a good way to raise awareness.
When you’ve already got some traction, using an idea, concept, or a call to action as a hashtag is even more effective.
Use your primary hashtag everywhere and introduce it into communication on all social channels that support hashtag searches.
It’s a way to make it easier for people to find you in other places where you’ve established an online presence.
Go with something emotionally charged and simple, something that resonates.
Here are some great examples.
- #ALSIceBucketChallenge – ALS Association
- #LikeAGirl – Always
- #ShareACoke – Coca-Cola
You can turn your tagline into a hashtag or introduce a few words that stand for a bigger initiative.
Mingle With Industry Leaders and Influencers
Going at it alone in an already established business ecosystem is like shouting underwater.
If you want potential customers to see and hear from you, you will need help.
A great way to boost awareness is to associate your brand with already established leaders in your industry, as well as influencers who shape the opinions of a large number of people.
Make it a goal to find people with complementary interests and follower bases that would be open to your offer and ride the wave of their reputation to build up your own.
If your niche is not already saturated with podcasts and videos that are hard to plow through for newcomers, contact opinion leaders and arrange a series of talks, videos, and materials to publish on your pages.
You can put the full materials on your core platform and use snippets and teasers to entice interest and generate traffic. Your star speaker will do the same, megaphoning the message and facilitating a greater impact.
As in life, so in business — you need friends and quality relationships.
Establish, Launch and Promote via Virtual Events
Virtual events have become the primary drivers of brand awareness for businesses and entrepreneurs, particularly as in-person events became impossible.
They take just as much work to create as non-virtual ones, but they have the benefit of not being restricted by location, or hindered by other logistical malfunctions.
These events take work, so use them for important occasions, such as product launches, large revelations, and riveting discussions that are of core interest in the community.
Every event needs attendees.
You need to be irresistible and tickle curiosity and interest. Best practices for record-breaking attendance include:
- Promoting on time, on various methods, media, and channels
- Personalizing invites where you can
- Making the registration as easy as possible, incentivizing early birders
- Donating some tickets or arranging giveaways to get people talking
- Keeping potential attendees interested with glimpses of content
- Getting media on your side and encouraging sharing information
While creating accompanying materials, you should also keep in mind that quality photo and video materials matter just as much (or more, depending on the platform) as content.
Get Involved With a Cause Your Audience Cares About
If you’re a small business aiming at local patrons, focus on local causes, events, and charities that matter to the community you’re targeting, and that can benefit from your involvement.
Choose a cause that speaks to your core values and the values your business holds in high regard, and try not to fake compassion, as it may tarnish your reputation and erode trust and loyalty.
For example, if you are in the field of education, choose social causes that focus on equal education opportunities or funding scholarships.
If you take pride in the sustainability of the processes, materials, and technologies in your production, highlight environmental causes.
Health and wellbeing, as well as children’s social causes, are always welcome.
Doing this will not only be personally satisfying, but also present your brand as a socially responsible business with a human touch — reaching out to give a hand, not only grab at wallets.
Conclusion
Building, maintaining, and boosting brand awareness takes time and effort. The consistent and persistent ones win.
There are no magic tricks to it, but all it takes is trying out a few new things to achieve success.
Get better at social media and get to work promoting. Create a hashtag to sear the brand name and values into your customers’ minds.
Not everyone in the industry will be your competitors, so connect with thought leaders and influencers, then use their reputation to grow.
A good virtual event with a substantial audience pool is incredibly valuable.
There’s a lot you can do, so get to work, be creative, and enjoy the process.
Joe Peters
Digital Web Services (DWS) is a leading IT company specializing in Software Development, Web Application Development, Website Designing, and Digital Marketing. Here are providing all kinds of services and solutions for the digital transformation of any business and website.
