If you’re wondering how to build a brand, you need to know that increasing brand awareness will be among the first steps for you to do. To think about it, how can a customer buy from you if they don’t know you exist?
What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness is the extent to which your target audience knows about you, the associations they have with your products, and the brand overall.
What are the elements of brand awareness?
Brand recall: an ability to generate a brand from memory when a certain product is needed.
In order to have people buy the product you’re offering, you will need to make sure that your brand is implanted in people’s heads. You need to become the first thing they remember when the need occurs. One of the ways to achieve that will be to appear everywhere they go. The more often they see your name and your services, the bigger the chance they notice you.
Brand recognition: ability to recognize a brand upon presentation.
Another element of brand awareness is having your potential customers recognize you when they see you. If they see your logo alone, they still need to remember what you’re all about.
What are the benefits of a good brand awareness strategy?
To increase your brand awareness you will need to devote a lot of time and effort to the task. But, believe us, it pays off in the end. Here’s what you can get out of the well-thought brand awareness strategy:
Customer loyalty: while doing the campaigns to increase brand awareness you have a chance to also advocate for your values and mission. They will become strongly associated with your brand, and have people be drawn to you based on them. If your values speak to the people, there is a high chance that they stay with you for a long time.
Visibility and traffic: this one is a given. The higher the chance people think of you when they need the product you’re offering, the bigger the traffic and the revenue consequently.
Credibility: people tend not to trust small brands, for the most part. There is a belief that if the owner hasn’t invested a lot of money into the brand just yet, they can be a scam. To go against that stereotype, make your name a buzzword. If the name is known, your target audience may consider you a lot more credible – even if your business is only 2 months old.
How to build a brand: increase brand recognition
There are hundreds of ways you can approach your brand recognition strategy. Today, we will share some of the tips on how to increase brand awareness that we believe are most helpful.
Focus on values and emotions.
Brands do not sell products, or services. They sell experiences and emotions. Focus all your campaigns – marketing or brand awareness ones – on offering emotions. Your task is to form an emotional bond with your customers. A good practice of doing that is tracking what people feel experiencing your brand, and tweaking your strategy to fit the image you want.
Stay consistent in style and messaging.
Brand awareness is not built in one day: in order to make people remember your brand, you have to stay consistent with how you communicate with the outside world.
Develop a brand identity and use the same style with your every output, even as small as a job offer. You need people to see the color and associate it with you, see the font and associate it with you. That’s consistent style.
Being consistent in messaging can build a personality out of your brand. If one day your content is written in a professional voice, and the next time you are silly and joking around, people won’t simply know what to think, and expect from you.
A good way to keep consistent with every brand element you have is to create a brand book. Add your brand identity elements, and communication style on a brand guideline document and get back to it every time you’re not sure how to present your brand. At Gingersauce, one of our goals is to help brands stay consistent with their style. In our platform, you can create an awesome brand guideline more efficiently, and fast enough for you to spend your saved time on a more creative task. In our smart wizard you can upload all your brand identity elements and have a ready brand book in a series of quick steps: for you to stay consistent, and for further corporate use. Try Gingersauce!
Enhance customer satisfaction.
1 bad review can wipe away 100 positive ones. You have to take into account what people say about their experiences with your brand. Try to track every stumbling point, and smoothen it to the best of your ability. You have to make sure that the absolute majority of your customers are left satisfied, then it’s just a matter of them recommending you to their friends, and family. Remember, the best marketing is word-of-mouth marketing.
Respond to your customers.
Brands that alienate themselves from their customers risk losing the customer loyalty. You need to appear approachable, and real. If they ask you something – answer, don’t leave them on read. It is understandably hard to answer everyone, especially if the brand is growing, yet, try to answer as many questions as you can. Thank people for their feedback, and always take their suggestions into consideration. Just be respectful with your audience, and they will feel bad to skip on you.
Don’t shy away from giving away free things.
No, that doesn’t mean you have to be working for free. We are talking about small presents, giveaways, contests. You won’t believe how much people appreciate that kind of service. You will not spend a lot of money on something as small as a few stickers, but they can do you a lot of good if shoved into the delivery box.
If we talk about awareness, it’s not rare for brands to collaborate with bigger companies to hold contests or giveaways. This way you can be exposed to the bigger brand’s audience and gain a lot of new customers.
Follow the formula.
Here’s a good formula you can use to a) build brand awareness; b) increase sales:
Media exposure x rational offer x systemity
Media exposure: post your offers everywhere your audience can see; for that you have to analyze your target audience, and what social media they use most often. Get an account on those, and advertise there. You don’t have to scatter your efforts across channels that don’t work for your particular audience.
Rational offer: the price for your service/product has to be in balance to its effectiveness and the possibilities your audience has. If the clients you are targeting cannot possibly afford your product, consider changing the price or tapping into a bigger audience.
Systemity: you have to be systemic with your presence. Don’t stop posting on social media, you have to be (appear) active and ever-growing. A profile that has 3 posts with the last one posted a year ago cannot be trusted.
According to the formula, you have to develop a rational offer, and make it clear through the right channels, systematically.
Try offline activities.
Though most of the brand awareness strategies do involve online activities, that is not the only way to go about it. People (usually) have lives outside the internet. So do not forget about the good old billboards, or ads on the town mall’s walls. They can be surprisingly effective in creating the brand recognition you want. People see, the ad is working.
Explore new advertising opportunities.
Don’t be stuck with the resources you know. Our advice would be to always stay on top of things: new social media is trending, new type of content is trending. The format is always changing, your job is to figure out if that channel works for your audience, and if yes – how to go for it.
For example, podcasts are raging today. People don’t have enough time to sit down and read, so they learn on the go. Have you thought about starting your own one? Sharing the things you learned?
Or have you thought about creating a Tik Tok account? Or advertising there? Though it’s not especially new, people still shy away from it, thinking the audience there is just too young. You’d be surprised to know that since Tik tok launched, the audience has matured a lot. Though there are a lot of Gen Z there, with millennials joining, you may find your customers there for sure.
☝🏻 Tip: Tok Tok LOVES small businesses. People there support other people. If you are just starting your startup, consider winning people’s hearts on Tik Tok.
Trying to build brand awareness? Gingersauce can help!
With one of the most important elements of creating a brand awareness being consistency you cannot do without a brand book. We’re here to help you with that!
Gingersauce is a professional tool for creating brand guidelines, that combines smart automation and your creativity. It’s a professional tool – meaning, it won’t do a half-baked job, leaving you with a mediocre result.
Add all the brand identity elements as you go and receive an awesome and professional brand book in the outcome. Time — saved, the client’s expectations — surpassed.
