How to increase brand awareness

Sure, you want consumers to recognise your brand when they encounter it, but increasing brand awareness means so much more. Having great brand awareness means consumers not only know your brand, but also have real feelings for it.

Of course, you can plaster your brand across town and all over the internet to gain consumers attention, however, this might come at a very high cost. Instead, we suggest other ways to increase brand awareness that will have a much better impact, and at significantly lower cost.

4 ways to increase brand awareness

1. Know your audience

The first step to building a relationship with consumers is to know who they are. If you are a new company, you might have to use your competitors to analyse your intended target audiences. If you are an already established business, conducting a survey is a great way to understand what your consumers think, when they see or interact with your brand.

READ ALSO: Brand tracking is key to increase brand awareness

2. Be where your consumers are

This might seem like a no-brainer, but with the many available media channels today, finding the ones that have the greatest impact on your business might be tricky. Which social media platforms are best suited for your brand? Should you use PR and newspapers, or stick with online magazines? What industry outlets are relevant to your audience? Are there events, conferences or social gatherings where you can reach your consumers? These questions need an answer, unless you choose to shoot in the dark and simply hope for the best. Another option is to try to stay relevant everywhere, a fool-proof way to waste all your resources without getting much traction.

3. Make referrals easy

The best results come when you are not the one doing the marketing. There are several ways to make it easy and exciting for your consumers to refer you to their friends and associates.

a) Give rewards for referrals. Dropbox is a great example, where they give their customers 500 Mb of extra storage space for each referral, up to a maximum of 16 Gb. This gained a lot of attention, especially as they were starting out and didn’t have much of a marketing budget. What perks can you give to consumers for referring you to their peers?

b) Host online contests. Hosting competitions on social media where contestants post a pic or a video, and have other users vote who should win, is a sure way to get a lot of attention. Competitors are likely to share their post to their social network in order to gain more votes and win the prize.

c) Offer Freemium content. Having a free version of your service, including a watermark or credit line, and then having the option to upgrade to a paid version is a great way to increase brand awareness. Many will opt for the free version, at least to start with, and then promote it to others, both intentionally and unintentionally. This way you either get free marketing or payment for your service, or in most cases both at the same time.

READ ALSO: Benefits of Path to Purchase Analysis

4. Partner up!

Going at it alone can be easy, but the truth is you are a lot more effective when working together with others. Partner up with local businesses to host events or create educational opportunities around your joint venture. Or contact some of the heavy-hitters in your industry, and find ways to complement their offerings. That way, they will appreciate your existence and promote you to their consumers.

Using some, or all of these solutions, will most probably help you increase brand awareness. Most of the solutions are also very cost effective, meaning you increase ROI when properly using them. Don’t put your hopes in doing the same thing you have always done, because the market is always shifting. Every business, even the really big ones, need to focus on current trends to ensure consumers are continuously aware of their brand, or fade out of existence.

Do you want to know more about how you can increase brand awareness? Contact us today and our brand experts will help you!