How to Build Brand Awareness?

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness can be defined as the extent to which a customer is able to recognize a brand. It is a vital component of the decision-making process prior to making a purchase. We tend to make a purchase if we are aware of a product category, a brand in that category, and sometimes, a brand name.

Brand awareness does not mean that the consumer has to recall a particular company name. All they need to know are features that make a product or service different from others in the same product/service category. The differentiating feature, in this case, could be packaging. It could be as simple as the color.

Why is brand awareness important?

• Brand awareness is a measure of how well consumers identify brands
• It helps to understand how consumers make purchasing decisions
• It can be an indicator of a brand’s success or failure in terms of brand strength, equity, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty
• It can help with top-of-mind awareness
• It helps with differentiating products
• It increases sales by forming favorable impressions that encourage customers to buy

Types Of Brand Awareness

The three types of brand awareness are –

• Brand Recognition: Brand recognition is when the customer can recognise the brand and differentiate it from other brands when he comes into contact with it. This type of brand awareness doesn’t require the customer to recall the name. It just focuses on whether the customer can recognise it when it is presented at the point-of-sale. Or when he witnesses the visual packaging.
• Brand Recall: Brand recall is a spontaneous recall of the brand from memory when the customer prompted by the product category. Most users can’t recall more than 3-5 brand names. It is affected by both individual and marketing brand factors like education level, usage, marketing strategies used by the company, etc. These brands form a part of the evoked set of the customer.
• Top-Of-Mind Awareness: Top-of-mind awareness is a set of 3 brands which the customer always purchases. This is the consideration set of the customer. Getting the brand into this consideration set is the ultimate marketing goal of every marketer.

How to create your brand awareness strategy:

Know what you stand for

Brand identity comes before brand awareness. But identity isn’t simply a collection of images or words that represents your brand – it’s what that brand stands for; it’s “why”.

Knowing what drives you and your digital business – your vision, mission, and values – will help illuminate your strategy.

Keep it consistent

It isn’t about throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. It’s a cultivated, meticulous strategy that requires staying consistent.

For one, that involves ensuring that all your marketing and communications – whether they’re blogs, paid ads, or handling a customer support request – sound like your digital brand. This, in turn, requires your brand to have a specific tone of voice.

Write posts for other websites

Guest posting – the practice of writing content for other websites in your brand’s niche – is a tried-and-tested strategy for SEO (search engine optimization). After all, the benefits of a well-placed backlink, from a well-reputed website, back into one of your site’s key pages are well-documented.

But guess what? Guest posting can boost your brand awareness, too – particularly if you serve a niche audience.