Building Awesome Brand Awareness
Building your brand up and getting noticed can be a daunting task if you don’t understand why brand awareness is important, how to achieve it, and how to maintain it.
So, what do you do to attract attention? To tell your customers that you deserve their business over your competition? How do you find that edge?
There are a few things you must do in order to achieve that goal and today we’re gonna talk about them.
Why Brand Awareness Matters
As every business person knows, it’s getting harder and harder to make an impact and stand out from the crowd these days. Why? Because people don’t have the attention span they used to have and there are an abundance of channels for us to focus on.
For instance I’m writing this blog while listening to a podcast, and my TV is on (muted, but on). Why on earth do I need all this stuff on? FOMO? Habit? Being left alone with my thoughts is scary? I dunno. But, it works, so no need to fix it.
Point being, capturing an audience is difficult to do and with so many ways of receiving information, education, and entertainment, you’ve got an uphill battle.
Where should you promote your brand? How should you promote your brand? What will keep your target audience engaged? This is the challenge, but also why brand awareness is critical to your success.
What you just gotta do is make an impression. Be seen, recognizable, and easy to remember. That’s how you’ll get and keep your customers.
How to Build Brand Awareness
No matter how amazing your business is, if you don’t create a brand that entices and connects, it won’t matter, so be sure to follow these rules when building your brand awareness:
Be Distinctive
When you don’t blend in, you become memorable. Don’t follow the guidelines of your competition. There’s not a rule book here. Set yourself apart.
Think of ways your brand differs from the rest and highlight those attributes, while thinking about the audience you desire.
Are you eco-friendly, are you plant based, are you philanthropic, are you an innovator, are you oozing with coolness or first-class taste? These are things you can (and definitely should) play up.
Your hope is for people to feel linked to you in a way that inspires them to think of you when they think of your product or service. And you’re also giving your customer something to talk about when you showcase these powerful characteristics.
A great way to consider how you want your audience to view you is by asking yourself why they would refer you to their friends. What would you like them to say about you? Your answer is where you should focus your brand.
Be Seen
Sounds easy, but this can definitely take some time to figure out. You can’t just throw an ad on a bus or the TV anymore. I mean, who watches actual live TV? Most people don’t even have cable these days.
But don’t worry, your audience isn’t dwindling, it’s just not where it used to be. So you gotta take full advantage of all the mediums in which to get your brand seen.
This may require some trial and error. Think about your target and find out where they are and when they’re there. Is it social media? Coffee houses? Spotify? YouTube? Professional office spaces? Reading blogs?
Be on those formats, too. All of them preferably. And, of course, be distinctive when you’re there.
Be Search Engine Optimized
SEO can help your brand awareness on a massive scale. How many times a day do you Google something? Google gets over 63,000 search queries a second. Do you know who comes up in the results? The companies with killer search engine optimization.
If you’re one of those companies, rock on. You’ve just proven yourself an authority to the search engines and to your audience. This credibility is memorable and users will turn back to you in the future.
The Missteps of Brand Awareness
When upping your brand awareness don’t get sidetracked. There are a couple things you can do that will actually harm your brand. Pay attention to:
Platforms
Don’t spend time, effort, and money on advertising to the wrong people because you’re on the wrong platforms. This is where the trial and error comes in. When a channel isn’t working for your brand, move.
You want to stay on top of where you’re performing the best and utilize those spaces. And always be on the lookout for new spaces to jump into. Brand awareness is a breathing thing that requires attention all the time.
Content
This circles back to SEO, be sure you’re providing high-quality content– and the more of it, the better. When a company becomes a source for education or entertainment, above and beyond whatever they’re selling, it’s a really good thing.
The best way to get to the point of being a valuable source for your customers is through exceptional and unique content. So keep working that SEO and they’ll keep coming back.
Perception
Always make sure you’re sending the right impression to your customers. You want your brand to be understood and accepted the way you mean for it to be, so pay attention to user-reaction.
If your customers aren’t seeing your brand in the “correct” manner, fix it through a new content strategy. It may take some time, but do some tests, listen to the feedback, and rework your brand to fit who you want it to and get the reaction you want it to.
The Takeaway
Snagging your target audience’s attention is intense and it doesn’t seem to be winding down. Grab the bull by the horns, take control of your branding, and awareness will follow.
If you’re in the market for some brand strategizing, we’re here to provide help with that. Give us a call today.
