The great number and diversity of brands across almost all types of products and services have made it a dog-eat-dog world for any single brand looking to stand out from the crowd.
Becoming the primary brand association for a certain product category is no easy task, and it could even be described as the pinnacle of brand awareness that every brand aims for.
Nevertheless, there are known steps and strategies to take when aiming to boost the awareness around a certain brand. In this article, we will take a closer look at how brand awareness can increase overall brand equity, as well as the most important principles in building brand awareness through different strategies.
What is Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness is a marketing term used to describe the ability of consumers to recognize and recall a brand.
Of course, not every product category is the same, which is why the competition, in order to maintain a high level of brand awareness, is much fiercer in certain categories. Product categories that are often used as examples for a highly competitive environment are essential everyday products, such as food and drinks.
Hubspot describes brand awareness as a measure of how familiar your target audience is with your brand and how well they recognize it
It is evident that creating brand awareness is not an exact science, as brand familiarity, brand recognition, and brand recall which are highly subjective, and may be temporarily increased through social media advertising, affiliate marketing, or a well-executed marketing campaign.
Key Takeaways
Brand awareness increases the overall value of the brand through the power of positive perceptions and a higher perceived value
Storytelling is one of the most effective tools in creating brand awareness and it can be effectively used on social media
Certain product categories will be highly competitive and harder to break through in terms of creating a high level of brand awareness
How to Define Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness may be defined as a key metric of brand success, which can be improved through various methods aimed at increasing brand recognition and overall brand equity.
The methods by which brand awareness can be improved are too many to count, but several key principles may be observed.
1. Interact with the Audience
Your brand will need to become a highly sociable entity and interact with both your primary audience and those on the outskirts of the target demographic. By interacting with a wide variety of buyer personas across social media and other channels, your brand will find itself in the eye of the public, raising awareness around it.
2. Tell a Story
Storytelling is one of the most effective marketing tools, and for good reason. By building a narrative you will reel the audience in and make them want to know more about you and your brand. A compelling story has the potential to boost brand awareness even more than a high-budget marketing campaign could.
3. Make Viral Content
Sharing compelling stories is good on its own, but the content you put out should inspire your target audience to share the content all over social media, creating a viral effect and a buzz around your brand.
Although some will attribute viral content to pure luck, it is also up to the brand positioning at the time and the quality of the content itself, not just the social media algorithm.
Why is Brand Awareness Important?
Brand awareness is one of the most important parts of the overall brand equity. High brand awareness implies that a certain product or service has a firm association with that product category in the mind of the consumer, so much so that certain feelings or needs themselves may remind the customer of the brand.
Brand Awareness increases Brand Equity
Brand equity, or the overall value of the brand, is largely reflected in the perceptions and attitudes surrounding it. Boosting brand awareness is based on promoting positive perceptions of a brand, which directly increases the value of the brand.
A high level of positive attention surrounding a brand contributes to its perceived value, which enables the brand to raise prices for existing customers, without any additional marketing.
Brand Awareness vs Brand Name
On the other hand, noticeably boosting brand awareness can take a long time, and is not the same as simply making the brand name more recognizable.
Although making the brand name more recognizable is an important part of boosting brand awareness, the brand name does not include the personality of the brand and all of the positive associations which a customer may associate with it.
What Are The Best Brand Awareness Strategies?
Although going through the better-known digital marketing strategies such as google ads, inbound marketing, or posting a Facebook ad or two is a good way to boost brand awareness, the best brand awareness strategy will integrate some of the following elements.
Use a Slogan
A brand awareness campaign can benefit greatly from a catchy slogan. It may sound funny at first, but a slogan that rhymes or is easy to remember will position your brand higher in the minds of your target audience.
It is important, however, to keep it short. Shorter slogans are much easier to remember and share on social media. This is also why they are often used by large brands – like the Nike slogan: Just do it.
Use a Logo
Your brand logo may be an image, a symbol, or a unique combination of the two. In any case, you should use it as much as possible, across all brand communications, and marketing, on every social media platform, thereby boosting your brand visibility.
Helping the target audience associate the logo with the brand can go a long way in increasing overall brand awareness.
Additional Tips & Tricks
- Creating brand awareness is one of the many ways to increase brand loyalty, as customers tend to trust recognizable brands more than unfamiliar ones
- Poorly executed social media campaigns and other types of marketing can create negative brand awareness, as a consequence of which customers form negative associations with a brand
- 88% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding what brands they like and support.
Now You Know What Brand Awareness is!
Brand awareness is the ability of your target audience to recognize your brand under different circumstances. Simply said, if a product that you are selling is mentioned somewhere, and your potential customers think of you instantly, you’ve succeeded in terms of brand awareness.
Be aware that brand awareness takes time and some industries may set higher boundaries in terms of building a brand in that niche.
You learned what brand awareness is, why it is important, and strategies for brand awareness and you’ve got a few tips & tricks in your pocket. With all this knowledge and information, it’s up to you now to determine your next steps and design a brand awareness strategy that fits your company or organization.
Brand Awareness FAQs
It is not easy to quantify brand awareness, but there are several ways to gain a clearer picture. Many social media platforms contain social media management tools, which automatically track engagement and other metrics that may be relevant for a brand awareness campaign.
Top-of-mind awareness is an important concept in marketing. It is used to describe a product or service that is the first brand to come to mind when a customer is asked an unprompted question about a category.
The benefits of having high brand awareness are manifold. Some of the most important ones include increases in sales, brand loyalty, positive perceptions of the brand image and brand identity, and an overall increase in brand value.
While brand recognition focuses on diversification of the brand and making it more noticeable, whether that is in the real world or on social media, brand awareness aims to build a connection between the brand and the customer. Brand recognition is, in a way, a smaller category than brand awareness.
