How to increase brand awareness

While it's tempting to blast your brand across every billboard, website, and social feed, this approach can be expensive and inefficient. Instead, there are smarter, more sustainable ways to increase brand awareness. Approaches that not only cost less but build stronger, more meaningful connections with your audience.

Here’s how to increase brand awareness strategically and effectively.

Increase brand awareness - know your audience

The foundation of every strong brand is a deep understanding of its audience. Before you invest in media, creative, or new campaigns, take the time to really know who your customers are.

If you’re launching a new brand, studying your competitors is a great starting point. What audiences do they attract? What messaging resonates with them? If you’re an established company, conducting fresh customer surveys can uncover valuable insights. Learn what your audience thinks when they see your brand — and how they compare you to others in your space.

The more you know about your audience’s needs, behaviors, and emotions, the more effectively you can increase brand awareness through targeted messaging and experiences.

Tip: Use brand tracking tools to monitor shifts in awareness and perception over time.

Be where your consumers are

It’s easy to assume you need to be everywhere — on every social channel, in every magazine, sponsoring every event. But that’s not the smartest path. To increase brand awareness efficiently, you need to be where your consumers are.

Ask yourself:

• Which social media platforms matter most to our audience?

• Are there specific digital publications, online communities, or forums they trust?

• Would traditional media like PR or newspaper placements offer higher credibility?

• What events, conferences, or gatherings do they attend?

Choosing your channels carefully ensures that every dollar and minute spent works harder for you. Spreading yourself too thin across irrelevant channels dilutes your impact and wastes resources.

Focus your efforts where they will truly make a difference.

Increase brand awareness - make referrals easy

Word-of-mouth marketing remains one of the most powerful ways to increase brand awareness. People trust recommendations from friends and family more than any advertisement. The challenge is making it easy and exciting for your customers to refer others.

Here are a few proven tactics:

Offer referral rewards:
Programs that incentivize sharing can skyrocket your reach. Dropbox famously offered extra storage for every friend a user referred — a tactic that helped the brand explode in its early days. Think about what perks or rewards you could offer your customers.

Run social contests:
Organize competitions where participants must share posts, videos, or photos and gather votes to win prizes. This naturally encourages participants to promote your brand to their networks.

Create freemium offerings:
Offering a free, entry-level version of your service can drive organic awareness. If you include subtle branding or watermarks, users of your free service can unintentionally promote your brand as they share content or results.

When executed well, referral strategies can amplify your reach far beyond what traditional advertising can achieve — and at a fraction of the cost.

Partner with the right brands

Strategic partnerships can offer a powerful shortcut to increased brand awareness. By teaming up with brands that share your audience — but aren’t direct competitors — you can tap into new networks and build credibility fast.

Consider:

• Co-hosting events with complementary businesses.

• Launching co-branded products or services.

• Partnering with influencers or thought leaders within your industry.

When you align with respected brands, you inherit some of their trust and visibility. It’s an efficient way to grow your brand's presence while creating mutual value.

Create shareable content

Content marketing remains a cornerstone strategy for building awareness. But not just any content will do. To truly increase brand awareness, your content needs to be genuinely valuable, emotionally resonant, or highly shareable.

Focus on creating:

• Educational blog posts that solve real problems.

• Entertaining videos that capture attention.

• Inspiring stories that spark conversation.

• Tools, templates, or resources that audiences want to share.

And don't forget to optimize your content for search engines to ensure it reaches new audiences organically.

Focus on consistency

Brand awareness isn’t built overnight. It takes consistent exposure over time to embed your brand into consumers' minds. Consistency in your messaging, visual identity, tone of voice, and customer experience ensures that every touchpoint strengthens your brand.

Whether a customer encounters you on Instagram, at a conference, or through a friend’s recommendation, they should experience the same brand personality and values.

Inconsistent branding confuses consumers and weakens your impact.

Measure and adapt

Finally, remember that increasing brand awareness is an ongoing process. Track your results carefully. Look at metrics like unaided brand recall, share of voice, website traffic, and social engagement.

If something isn’t working, be ready to pivot. Testing new channels, creative approaches, and messaging strategies will help you continuously refine your brand-building efforts.

At Nepa, we specialize in helping brands measure, understand, and optimize every stage of the customer journey — from first awareness to deep loyalty.

Final thoughts on how to increase brand awareness

Knowing how to increase brand awareness is about more than just visibility. It’s about creating meaningful connections that turn casual encounters into lasting relationships.

By understanding your audience, choosing the right channels, making referrals easy, forming smart partnerships, creating shareable content, and staying consistent, you can significantly boost your brand’s profile — and do it in a way that drives real, measurable growth.

Want to increase brand awareness for your business?

Contact Nepa today and let our brand experts help you design a strategy that builds recognition, trust, and loyalty for the long term.

Published on: 24TH MAY 2021