Whether your business already has a large following or you’re in the very beginning stages of marketing, there’s always room to increase your brand awareness.
But contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a huge budget or years of professional marketing experience to effectively increase your reach. Instead, your success depends on using strategies that have proven to be successful.
Keep reading to learn about seven great ways to create awareness for your brand without breaking the bank.
1. Build a Unique Brand Identity
The number one way to start increasing awareness of your brand is to make it memorable. Creating a unique brand identity will help you stand out from other competitors in your niche.
Take some time to sit down and write out the story you want your business to tell. Is there a specific cause you’re passionate about? Do you have an interesting origin story, or is there a certain mood or activity you want people to associate your products with?
Once you’ve described the story you want to tell, work on developing the voice and imaging to go along with it. This can include slogans, taglines, campaigns, logos, and other forms of communication. Take care to always highlight the things that make your brand attractive to your ideal clients.
2. Custom Apparel and Accessories
There’s nothing people love more than free stuff, so use that to your advantage! Branded products are a great way to raise brand awareness, especially when you give out items that people will wear or carry with them.
If your business has a booth at a conference or other event, consider offering larger items like t-shirts, tote bags, or baseball caps with your logo on them as raffle prizes in exchange for contact information. Then, choose some smaller items to hand out to everyone who stops by—stickers, buttons, and keychains are all popular options. And if you’re not sure which branded items to start with, check out these zipper pull designs for some inspiration!
3. Create a Strong Social Media Presence
As of 2019, an estimated 2.77 billion people actively use social media platforms. If your business hasn’t built a strong social media presence, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity to raise awareness.
If you’re selling a physical product, making a profile on image-driven sites like Pinterest and Instagram can help you showcase it to the world. If you’re providing services or information, consider being active on language-based platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But no matter what your business specializes in, make sure that you’re creating a presence on the sites your target audience is most active on.
4. Maximize Your SEO
There’s a clever quip floating around the internet that says “the best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of a Google search.” While that’s a bit of hyperbole, it’s not too far off—by the time you get down to the 7th organic result on the first page of search results, only 3.5% of users will click through.
That’s why investing in search engine optimization (SEO) is vital. There’s no point in working to increase your brand awareness online if no one can find your website!
A good starting place is keyword research—Google has multiple free tools that will tell you what terms people use to search for products and services like yours. Once you’ve found some terms that you would like to rank for in search results, begin adding them into strategic parts of your website like headers, menu and navigation bars, and body content.
5. Start Blogging
Hosting a blog on your site is a two for one deal: not only does it help raise brand awareness, but it can also help to boost your SEO. If your business doesn’t have a blog yet, it’s time to get started!
When writing a blog, there are a couple of important things to keep in mind. First, the content should always be both relevant to your brand and valuable or entertaining to your ideal customers. And second, content creation works best when you publish consistently—at least once or twice a week.
To take your blogging a step further, try writing a guest post for an authoritative site. When visitors read the post, they’ll be redirected back to your website via a link or author credit. This is a wonderful way for small businesses to quickly increase their advertising reach.
6. Personalize the Customer Experience
Today’s consumers want to feel that they’re valued and their voice matters. They also want a consistent level of service no matter how they interact with a business. That’s why creating a personalized customer experience is more important than ever.
In fact, half of all consumers surveyed by Salesforce said that they would be likely to switch brands if the company didn’t anticipate their needs. Personalizing email communication, offering live chat and phone support, and interacting with customers on your social media pages are all fantastic ways to individualize your brand. People who feel like they are truly valued customers are more likely to spread the word about your business to others.
7. Join Forces with Valuable Partners
Finally, remember that building brand awareness is easier when you’re not doing it by yourself. Partner up with other businesses that serve the same customer base, but offer a product or service that doesn’t directly compete with yours.
For example, if you’re an artist that designs greeting cards, you might partner up with a local jewelry artist to offer a Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day package. You’ll both be able to broaden your advertising reach by targeting each other’s existing audiences, so it’s a win for everyone involved!
Another way to join forces is through influencer marketing. Find an influencer on social media whose followers are a part of your target audience, and work out a deal with them to promote your products or services on their page. This is a great way to have your product seen by thousands of people at a time, but be careful to only work with influencers who will represent your brand well.
2019 Is the Year to Create Awareness for Your Brand
You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars or be a professional marketer to create awareness for your brand. Don’t wait to give these tips a try—you might be surprised at how quickly word spreads!
For more helpful tips and inspiring business content, make sure to check back with our blog regularly.