There are currently more than 200 million active websites in the world. In addition, about 10,500 new ones are created every hour. Such a large number of websites makes it challenging for marketers and business owners who want their websites to be visible and easy to find in search engines. The key to success is brand awareness, which positively impacts business performance.
Read this article if you are wondering how to start growing your brand awareness. Here you will find some practical hints that will help you boost your business.
Article Contents
Brand Awareness – Why Is It Important, and How To Get Started?
The main reason why branding is vital for any business is that people are more likely to buy products or use services from companies they know and trust. Thus, brand awareness affects more customers. Moreover, having a well-known brand means people can spend more money on your products. Famous brands have more influence on consumers and get their brand ambassadors more easily. Furthermore, 89% of marketers admitted that brand awareness was their most important marketing goal.
You already know why brand awareness is so important, so the next question you probably have is: How to get started?
First and foremost, you need to match your brand awareness marketing strategy to the current situation of your business. Building brand awareness for a company just entering the market is different than for a company that already exists and has customers.
If you are starting, you need to focus on finding answers to the following questions:
- What makes you different from your competitors?
- Who are your potential customers?
- What is important to your target audience?
- What social media channels does your audience prefer?
- What is the greatest value of your products/services?
- How will people find your website?
- What pages do your potential customers visit?
- What keywords do you want to rank for?
- What are the tactics of your competitors?
Next, your strategy should be tailored to your brand and the specific audience you want to reach.
If you have been in business for a while, you have valuable data that can help raise brand awareness, such as purchase history, data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console, and statistics from social media channels. With them, you can find out:
- What content and marketing efforts are most effective?
- How do people find your website?
- What are your brand’s strengths, and what do your customers like the most?
- On which social media do you have the most followers, and which are worth putting more effort into?
- What activities bring you the most traffic?
- What keywords do your customers find you through?
- What activities are your competitors doing, and what gives them the best results?
Moreover, if you have a B2B business, you can also use B2B marketing data to better understand your target audience and create a strategy tailored to buyer-specific purchasing paths.
Based on this information, you’ll be able to create an effective strategy based on historical data and the past preferences of your customers. That way, you’ll be able to focus on the activities that bring you the best results.
How to Grow Brand Awareness
1. SEO Techniques
Link Building
One of the most popular methods to expand your brand is through an SEO strategy that uses backlinks. By having external sites link to your website, you not only gain additional traffic and potential customers but also help your website rank higher in search engine results and improve your online presence. High-quality and relevant backlinks show Google that you have a trustworthy website that brings value to users.
However, to succeed in this tactic, websites have to be relevant to your industry and reach the same target market as yours. To get the best results, you can use a backlink tool by SE Ranking that will help you build an advanced data-driven link-building strategy.
Keyword Optimization
Whether you’re a new brand or your business has been around a long time, choosing the right keywords for your brand is crucial if you want to get traffic from search engines.
It will help your customers find your website faster by typing specific keywords in the search engine and increase traffic.
Moreover, by focusing on increasing the volume of your branded search terms, you increase the overall power of your website. By creating relevant content that matches users’ search intent, you can also attract consumers who are far more likely to purchase a specific product on your website.
If you sell popular products, it’s a good idea to look for keywords that aren’t very popular with your competitors. It is advisable to use SEO tools that will show you the search volume and difficulty score.
Fresh, Catchy Content
Another way to build brand awareness is to provide valuable content that meets customer expectations and needs. Creating engaging and useful content can help you rank for more keywords, reach more people, and encourage customers to use your services or buy your products. Moreover, by publishing content regularly, you show Google’s robots that your site is up to date, so they will rank it higher.
To attract the largest possible audience, ensure that the content you publish is engaging and varied. Try to share valuable infographics, exciting statistics, engaging videos, and more. This way, you will gain more returning users eager to share your content with others.
2. Creating a Unique Personality
“Stand out or die” – is a maxim that marketing professionals at many well-known brands follow. Especially if you have a lot of competition, it makes sense to find a way to stand out among the competition. Creating a unique brand identity is a good idea if you work in an industry where you can afford a bit of comedy, craziness, and controversy. It can make your brand more visible and uniquely memorable.
IKEA is a brand that is not afraid to combine humor with marketing campaigns. One of the most exciting advertising creations was their reaction to Balenciaga’s new bag that looked similar to IKEA’s standard shopping bag.
The action went viral online and was very much appreciated by customers. It was humorous but also professional and in line with the company’s branding. It is an excellent branding strategy example of how to create attention-grabbing content that fits the company’s identity.
3. Referral Programs
According to HubSpot, people are 4x more likely to buy a product that a friend has recommended. Therefore, the next step to increasing your brand awareness and customer base is a referral program that offers benefits to both the referrers and new users who benefit from the referral.
An example is italki’s (language app) referral program, which allows users to get credits and coupons by inviting friends to become new users. Existing users can earn $10 for each friend they invite, with the new user purchasing $20 italki credits.
Referral programs are very popular and effective ways to attract new, loyal customers who will refer your products or services to other users.
4. Share Your Knowledge, and Show Your Wisdom (Podcasts, Webinars, Infographics)
If you provide your users with quality content they will be more likely to return to your site and share interesting material with other users.
Nowadays, more and more companies are deciding to conduct webinars, record podcasts, publish free ebooks, record video tutorials on YouTube, organize free conferences, and much more. These activities help them to gain loyal customers who will willingly use their products and become ambassadors of their brands.
An example of a company that follows this practice is HubSpot. On their website, you will not only find regularly published blog posts but also free ebooks, guides, courses, templates, and much more.
5. Local Partnerships
If you want to increase awareness of your brand, it’s a good idea to think about partnering with another brand whose products your customers may use.
If you’re a startup, it’s a good idea to start by partnering with another local brand. Doing so will combine your collective reach, build customer trust, and increase the chances of selling your products.
For example, if you have a pizzeria, you could sell beer from a local brewery. In return, your partner could tag your business on their company’s social media and mention your pizzeria on their website. You could also host joint contests for your customers as well as marketing campaigns.
One of the most popular business-to-business collaborations is between Nike and Apple, which teamed up to produce the Apple Watch Nike – a watch for runners.
6. Social Media
Social media is essential in increasing brand awareness if you’re trying to build a community around your site. Posting on your channels is important, but it’s worth doing more if you want your brand to get noticed. Start browsing content published by your followers and other collaborating brands. If you own a B2B business, you can also follow the company’s fan pages of your clients.
Then, try to interact with them. Comment, react, and share their content if you find it valuable. It is another way to gain loyal consumers and reach new audiences.
7. Influencer Marketing
Is it worth investing effort and money in influence marketing?
Well, let’s look at the latest data: According to the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report, the value of this market grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $9.7 billion in 2020. In 2021, it soared to $13.8 billion, and this year, it is predicted to expand to a whopping $16.4 billion.
As you can see, the importance of this trend continues to grow as more and more companies see its huge potential. It is especially effective for companies whose audience is young people who want products similar to those of their idols. According to the Influencer Marketing 2020 report, 61% of respondents in the 18 to 34 age group have been convinced by an influencer to buy something.
8. PPC Advertising
Building and implementing an SEO strategy usually requires long and hard work to see the desired results. If you want quick results, it is worth considering PPC campaigns that will grow your brand and make it more visible in the search engine. Choosing the right keywords helps you to appear at the top of the list of popular search results in your target audience.
Even if people do not click on your site, chances are they will remember it and visit it in the future.
Summary
As you can see, there are many ways to grow your brand’s awareness. Some methods are universal. Others need to be tailored to the specifics of your industry and audience. Remember to choose different strategies for local and online businesses. The industry, age, and gender of your audience are also important. For example, influence marketing will work better in B2C than in B2B. The key to success is to always put your customers’ needs and expectations first.
