Branding and design aren’t just about creating a visual identity that makes your business look good. They run much deeper than that. Branding is about the way you connect and engage with your audience and the people you do business with.
As a business in the ever growing and ever-changing digital age, you need to ensure people are aware of your brand across multiple channels and platforms.
What is brand awareness and why is it important?
Brand awareness represents how familiar your target audience is with your brand and your business values. We can all recognise a Nike product or Apple product from miles away – that’s what great brand awareness can do for your business.
It’s not necessarily a metric you can track with analytics or something you can quantify in a number, but that isn’t to say brand awareness isn’t important. You want your audience to recognise you, no matter how big or small of a business you are. You can spend hundreds or even thousands on marketing ad spend, and posting on social media, but without a brand to set your business apart from others, your posts and products or services will sit under the radar.
Six ways to increase brand awareness
We live in a world where people are easily swayed by the opinion of their peers. So, it is important for brands to become more aware of the influence of social media and the importance of branding. In this section, we will explore how businesses can increase brand awareness:
1.
Invest in great content marketing
Every business has a great story to tell, and the way you tell it will go a long way toward determining your success. What you say, and the way you say it, are just as important as your logo, branding and visual identity. Having a great copywriter by your side will do wonders for your business to ensure your tone of voice and what your brand talks about online are all in line with your businesses core values and ideals.
2.
Have a strong marketing strategy
While big one-off campaigns can look impressive and deliver short-term gains, achieving consistent results from your marketing takes continuous time and effort. That’s where a strong marketing strategy can help. By having a long-term plan in place, your business will be able to reach more, attract more and achieve more, indefinitely.
A marketing strategy can cover multiple platforms all from one ‘hub’. From creating campaigns specifically for social media platforms, to building your brand through SEO and PPC. All activity will help boost your brand awareness whilst still promoting your brand’s services and products.
3.
Utilise SEO
Your website is just words and pictures, but without a solid search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy, it remains just that. The search engines need to learn to recognise, like and trust your website in the same way humans do. The right SEO metadata, combined with engaging keyword-rich content and an intuitive user journey will help you achieve this.
4.
Review your brand identity
Business doesn’t stand still. Tastes, ideas and trends change, and so do your customers. What might have worked a decade ago, probably doesn’t anymore – unless you raised enough brand awareness throughout that period of time.
If you’re struggling to keep or generate new customers, it may be time to review your brand identity and overall look. A facelift for your brand, your message and your visual identity is vital to ensure you continue to resonate with your target audience and communicate who you are.
5.
Create original visual content
Using original content, specifically across social media channels, is crucial to raise brand awareness that your audience and potential customers will remember and recognise in the future. Whether you decide to use photos or videos or graphic designs, using your own content, rather than stock imagery, will help increase brand awareness.
Occasionally, stock imagery is the only way forward when you’re just starting out, but investing in a photographer, videographer, or graphic designer will only benefit your business and brand.
6.
Invest in PPC advertising
Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising has become a digital marketing mainstay for businesses of all sizes in recent years. It’s a quick and effective way of driving traffic to your website and to gain visibility at the top of the search results page.
However, in order to win at the PPC game, you often need specialist support to optimise your accounts and maximise the return on your investment.
Great brand awareness is all about creating a unique look and message for your business that is consistent throughout all your digital marketing activity.
We’ve assembled an in-house team of creative and digital experts who love what they do and are passionate about solving our clients’ marketing challenges.
We’d love to hear about your next project. Talk to us today to arrange a free consultation.