You’ve spent years honing your expertise, your customer base, and reputation of excellence. But do you know how to build the recognition and awareness your brand needs to succeed online?
In this post, we’ll focus on strategic ways to use digital marketing to build your brand awareness. If you haven’t spent time focusing on marketing your brand, have no fear! Now is a great time to start building your brand awareness, no matter where you’re starting from.
This article will outline what brand awareness is, how it works, and how you can make it work for you. Keep reading to learn more.
What Is Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness is the level of familiarity and recognition consumers have of your company and its offerings. Successful brand awareness involves more than just name recognition; it includes emotional appeals, aesthetic presentation, and other associations.
You’ve experienced this yourself if you’ve ever chosen a Mac over a PC or Coke over Pepsi. These products are mostly the same, but we have different expectations when we see a sleek white Apple ad or heartwarming Coca Cola commercial. The features that make these products unique plus the associations we make with these products lay the foundation for strong brand awareness and customer loyalty
Brand awareness is also a crucial first step in any marketing funnel. When your company has strong brand awareness, your customers will know exactly who you are, what you offer, and think of you when they’re ready to buy.
How Does Brand Awareness Work?
Simply put, potential consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand they’re familiar with than one they don’t know. Branding gives future customers a sense of who you are as a business, your beliefs, your process, and the value you bring to their lives. So, when they’re ready to make a purchase, hire your services, or enlist your help, your company will be who they think of first.
Companies use multiple tactics to build brand awareness. Branding fundamentals set the tone for your company’s presence in the world. This includes your company colors, fonts, voice and tone, design style, and overall “feel.” If you’ve ever felt like there’s a difference in perception between Coke and Pepsi (without being able to tell them apart in a blind taste test), you’re experiencing branding at work.
Of course, large soft drink companies have enormous budgets to create exceptional brands recognized across the world. But no matter your budget, smaller companies still have the opportunity to create memorable branding, build a strong presence, and use that brand awareness to earn new clients.
A Strong Digital Presence Builds Brand Awareness
Consumers spend an extraordinary amount of time online. In fact, as many as 88% of consumers look online before purchasing. This means they interact with your website, social media, reviews on Google, Yelp, and more. All these platforms give consumers a sense of who you are and how your services meet their needs.
For small businesses or companies hoping to target a niche audience, digital marketing is one of the most efficient and effective ways to reach prospective customers. Digital marketing includes your website, social media, paid advertising, and videos.
Digital marketing also offers valuable advertising metrics. Tools like Google Analytics help you understand who is coming to your website and what they do when they get there. A Facebook business page lets you track the number of likes, conversions, and people sharing your posts. And when you run ad campaigns, not only do you have an extraordinary amount of control over who you target with your advertising, but you have access to data that lets you know how successful those campaigns were. You can track your subscribers, measure conversion rates, explore cost per lead, discover average order value, and more, depending on the tools you employ.
With these valuable metrics, you can interact with your audience like never before so you can build trust with potential and loyal customers.
4 Ways Businesses Can Build Brand Awareness
Need to increase your brand’s visibility but aren’t sure how to get started? Building brand awareness isn’t as complicated as you might think.
Here are three simple ways to get started using digital marketing to build your brand awareness online (and translate that awareness into loyal customers).
Fine-Tune Your Brand
Before you invest in paid advertising, take a look at your company’s brand’s creative elements. Everything you release into the world should have the same look, feel, and message. This includes using consistent colors, the same logo, fonts, and a unified message. When all these elements remain consistent, your company will be more recognizable and more likely to “stick” in the consumer’s mind.
When refining your brand, don’t forget to think about what makes your company stand out. Are you family-owned? What makes your perspective unique? How is your approach different from your competitors? When you lead with your strengths, you’ll be consistent and memorable.
Build an Online Presence
With nearly 90% of shoppers doing research online before they buy, having a website is critical. A high-performing website can help you make sales, capture new audiences, and track user data. For many businesses, a do-it-yourself website is a great stop-gap measure but insufficient in the long run. Built from scratch websites are more secure and scalable, meeting your needs and tracking your data — making them worth the investment.
In addition to your website, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram have made finding and connecting with your niche market increasingly accessible. These free platforms do offer paid advertising that allows you to narrow in on your target audience. However, you don’t necessarily need paid ads if you have a strategic plan for creating content.
Social media allows you to be more conversational, informative, and offer valuable content that drives traffic back to your website. The content should consist of a little bit of self-promotion and heavy on relationship-building. With eye-catching pictures, videos, and words, you can engage your audience like never before.
Create Engaging Content
When you need to connect with people using digital tools, think about what they need to decide to hire you. Would they benefit from a client testimonial? A positive user review? A comprehensive blog article? Or maybe photographs of your product and an explanation of what makes it great?
Sharing information relevant to your target audience’s decision-making process plus your unique story is a recipe for success. You can share this content as a video, a well-designed graphic, or even a photograph or email blast — whatever medium makes sense for your clients and their needs.
Leverage Brand Ambassadors and Reviews
Brand awareness also involves a healthy amount of trust. One way people build trust with brands is a phenomenon called social proof; the idea that if someone we trust had a good experience with a product, it will be good for us, too.
You can leverage social trust for yourself by inviting customers or clients to leave a review on Google. Or, you can have them write a testimonial that you can share on social media. Some companies also work with brand ambassadors who champion your product by sharing your content and advertise your product on their social platforms.
Work With a Digital Marketing Company to Build a Recognizable Brand
Building a recognizable brand takes time. If you need to build your online presence but aren’t sure where to start, it’s time to consider working with an experienced digital marketing company. When you work with a team of marketing experts like LaFleur, they can help you understand your audience’s needs, build and tell your brand’s story, and the most effective way of reaching your ideal customer online.
LaFleur: Brilliant Digital Marketing You Can Trust
At LaFleur, we’re honored to work with companies and law firms across the country to build strong brands and effective marketing that gets results. If you’re ready to learn more about how we can help your organization build brand awareness, don’t hesitate to get in touch! Our team is full of hardworking talent and exceptional project managers, so you can trust that your deliverables will be carried out on time, on budget, and with transparency.
To speak with the LaFleur team about how we can support your digital marketing efforts, you can call our office at (888) 222-1512 or complete this brief online form.
We look forward to hearing from you!
References
PYMNTS. (2018, January 9). Consumers Are Increasingly Researching Purchases Online. Retrieved from https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2018/omichannel-ecommerce-consumer-habits/
