Do you ask for a bandage or a Band-Aid at a pharmacy if you want to cover up a cut? When you sneeze, do you ask for a tissue or a Kleenex? What about when you want to keep your lips moisturized? Do you look for Chapstick or lip balm?
These are all excellent brand awareness examples for various products we use regularly. Coca Cola, Kleenex, and even Xerox are actually just brand names, but strategic brand awareness campaigns are what made these brands synonyms for generic terms.
Brand Awareness Definition
Brand awareness is a marketing term that refers to how well your target audience recognizes your brand and how familiar they are with it. This is the first step in strategically influencing a customer’s decision-making process and standing out from the competition. Brand awareness may seem vague to marketers who prefer to measure success in terms of precise numbers. But it is undeniably crucial for a business’s success and overall marketing objectives to get noticed by its target audience.
Brand Awareness Importance
Brand awareness is how well-known your company or business is. A company like Coke or Pepsi is going to sell way more than an unknown, generic cola because customers typically prefer known brands over unknown ones. In fact, 82% of people will choose a brand they are familiar with over another brand even if their preferred brand is ranked lower on Google when they search it up.
· Brand awareness builds brand equity.
In marketing, brand equity refers to the value of having a well-known and well-recognized brand. It also shows the amount of power a brand name has in the minds of consumers. If a brand is seen as valuable, they can afford to have a more expensive product and make more money every time they sell that product.
That’s why many brands decide to seek innovative solutions such as best on demand marketing services that perfectly fit their strategy.
· Brand awareness fosters trust.
When your brand establishes an emotional bond with its customers, the customers will be more likely to make purchases or suggest your products/services to others. By showcasing your authentic personality, brand awareness establishes brand trust with your consumers.
· Brand awareness creates a network.
Brand awareness spreads like wildfire if it is well-planned. Once a brand draws enough attention to itself, it can form a network and rely on the power of word-of-mouth marketing to spread its name around.
How to Create Brand Awareness?
With brand awareness, branding and marketing are often used interchangeably. But they are actually slightly different and your brand awareness campaigns or brand awareness strategy should reflect that. Long before your brand marketing strategy kicks in, you should have established your brand. Your identity and the values you bring to the table are at the heart of your brand. And this strategy is not just your logo or your tone of speech. Brand awareness is located in the transition phase of becoming known, where you create marketing strategies to get your brand exposure in the market. Brand awareness happens when you are marketing the brand.
It’s crucial to know how much brand awareness you have before you start building it. If you’re a new brand or entering a new market, you’ll have to start from scratch. However, if your company has been around for a while, you will already have some brand awareness and can use that when you’re making your new strategy. Here are some ideas for building a solid brand awareness foundation and leaving a lasting impression on your audience:
· Be Personable
Adding a bit of your own personal touch to your brand, such as your interests, passions, likes, dislikes, etc. makes you appear genuine and portrays you as more than just a company.
· Be Sociable
Nearly all successful businesses have a consistent presence on social media platforms. But not all brands take advantage of social media. Getting online and engaging with your consumers can help increase your presence. There are other awesome ways to socialize with your business like sponsored events or fundraisers.
· Create a Story
Your stories are what etch your name into other people’s minds. Storytelling can be a powerful way to increase your brand awareness. You can tell stories about your founder, the story of how your company came up with its first product idea, or the behind-the-scenes story of how your business succeeded. Get creative.
· Be Easy to Promote
At a certain point in your brand awareness campaign, your loyal customers will start promoting your name for you. But before you get to that point, you’ll need to create content that’s both interesting and easy to share. Blog posts, sponsored material, videos, social media posts, and product sites are all examples. Create useful content that can easily be shared by others and your brand awareness efforts will be successful.
6 Strategies to Increase Brand Awareness
It’s helpful to think about the 3 R’s when considering your business’ brand awareness – get Recognized, Remembered, and Revered. Every company has its own strategy for getting brand recognition, which is a good thing because there is no one-size-fits-all approach to becoming a household name. But there are some helpful methods for every brand awareness strategy and your brand awareness activities.
1. Influencer Marketing
Collaborating with influential content creators in your niche is an effective way to amplify your voice and get your name heard. Find expert Influencers and pitch them your brand to ask them to collaborate. This process can be easy if you’re ready to join influencer marketing hubs. Ainfluencer is a safe and free influencer marketplace that lets you start effective Instagram influencer marketing campaigns. Its AI-driven platform narrows your options down to the most relevant influencer thanks to high-level filters. Ainfluencer also provides you with real-time analytics, including likes, comments, engagement rate, and more.
2. Brand Partnerships
The saying “there is strength in numbers” is also true when talking about businesses. Brands of all sizes often join together, partner up, and provide value to each other to promote their brands, and as a result, their brand recognition quickly grows.
Make sure that both businesses share similar audiences and values.
Depending on their niche, brands can collaborate in a variety of ways. They have the option to publish blog posts or articles, or interviews through video or podcasts, or they can run a campaign that is related to their products and services. At the very least, they can appear in the same location and provide value to their audience.
3. Guest Posting
Guest posting is another approach to increasing brand awareness. Guest posting (using traffic that is already coming to another website to draw attention to your business) is a powerful way to get your name out there in your industry.
You can get started by looking for brands with similar audiences and then approaching them with ultra-valuable content to publish on their blogs. Include an example headline from a previous piece of content you’ve collaborated on with other brands in your pitch email, and then pitch them your new idea. Just try to keep your pitches brief so that they don’t get passed over.
4. Referrals
A referral from a family member or friend is far more likely to be accepted than any form of advertising. People listen to those that they trust. If your audience recommends your business to their friends and family, you can be sure that they will at least consider your business. Think about what kind of perks you can provide (coupons, discounts, or whatever), then provide it, encourage your tribe and audience to promote you through word-of-mouth, and watch your business grow exponentially.
5. Free Content
Free content is always eye-catching. And, it’s probably the best way to raise brand awareness. If you’re just starting out, offer a service for free or free information that people will use and associate with your brand. It will pay off in the long run.
Your free content doesn’t necessarily need to be in written form either. You can adapt your content across visual platforms and create videos or infographics – more than 90% of the information delivered to the human brain is visual. Don’t forget about auditory learners and do some podcasts as well.
You can advertise your industry expertise, champion trends, exhibit your personality, and communicate your ideas. Free content can improve your audience’s opinion of you and make them more willing to share your material, which contributes to increasing your brand awareness.
6. Freemiums
Experiencing just enough of a product for your basic needs, but not being able to use it in its entirety is called “freemium” service. The popular software applications and internet-based businesses’ pricing model offers basic or limited features to users at no cost and then charges a premium for supplemental or advanced features. Offering freemiums gives customers the opportunity to try a product before purchasing it.
Freemiums are typically a win-win strategy that can hopefully show your audience the benefits of your product and why they need access to all of its features.
5 Amazing Brand Awareness Examples
After learning about brand awareness’ definition, importance, and some basic strategies, let’s take a look at some awesome brand awareness examples.
1. Share a Coke
The iconic status of Coca-Cola in branding and marketing is undeniable, thanks to brand awareness campaigns like these. #ShareACoke is a fantastic brand awareness example that demonstrates how far branded hashtags, interactive content, and personalization can get your name out there.
Coca-Cola launched the campaign first in Australia in 2011, which prompted users to share their own content with the Share A Coke hashtag on social media. How did this work? The campaign revolved around customers’ love of personalization. The brand added the country’s most common names on the wrapping around the Coca-Cola bottle, encouraging customers to look for a bottle with their name in store.
2. Apple Events
Apple’s phenomenal, long-term success is due to more than just superior technology. The way Apple draws the attention of a global audience to their business demonstrates how well this company’s marketing the brand. Apple’s audience actively looks forward to yearly product unveilings every fall. They have found a way to turn their product releases into highly anticipated events which makes this a great brand awareness example!
3. Dropbox
Dropbox has run one of the most successful referral marketing programs in the world. Even a decade after it started, marketing professionals are incorporating it into their own business plans.
Dropbox grants personal plan users 500 MB of extra storage space and professional users 1 GB of extra storage space (up to 16/32 GB) for each person they recommend. Dropbox managed to double its user population every three months when it was still a newcomer, with users sending 2.8 million invites in April 2010. This translates to a 3900% increase in brand awareness in just 15 months!
4. Coors Light #CouldUseABeer
Running a giveaway has always been a great strategy to raise brand recognition and attract new customers.
Coors Light took advantage of the fact that everyone loves free stuff and created a viral social media marketing campaign called “CouldUseABeer.” All you had to do was buy a six-pack and tweet @CoorsLight with the campaign hashtag about anyone in your life who could use a beer and why. They continued to give away free beers until they had given away around 500,000 to delighted customers.
5. Spotify Wrapped
The Spotify Wrap is an outstanding brand awareness example of leveraging personalization in marketing strategies.
Spotify has been sharing year-end data with its users since 2017, compiling their most-listened-to songs, albums, and artists into a personalized “Spotify Wrapped” summary”.
The way it’s given to users is what makes it a terrific piece of material for increasing brand awareness.
Their summary snapshots are available in shareable image formats, making them great for sharing on social media. Spotify recently went a step further, informing the artist of their total number of fans, countries where their music was streamed, and total hours of streaming time. This brand awareness example has been so successful that December’s Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook timelines are usually filled with #SpotifyWrapped posts.
Final Words
There are many ways to build brand awareness which is why it might initially seem like a confusing topic. But once you find your business’ personal branding strategy, you can expect awesome returns.
The techniques and strategies recommended above paid off considerably. Follow their success and the pieces of advice in this article for developing and growing brand recognition. Eventually, you’ll have a loyal audience that identifies with your brand over the competitors.
Simply put, brand awareness is the extent to which a brand is recognized by its target audience.
Popular social media platforms like Instagram are the perfect way to boost brand awareness. Instagram has nearly 1 billion monthly users, many convenient built-in tools to help you reach new followers, it’s easy-to-use, visually appealing, and lets you personalize your brand.
1- influencer marketing 2- Brand partnerships 3- Guest posting 4- Referrals 5- Free content
