Importance Of Brand Awareness And How To Boost Yours

In the past few years, the rules of business have changed. Companies have realized the importance of brand awareness. It is the key to building a strong business and reputation. Without brand awareness, a business can never reach its full potential. If a company wants to be taken seriously, they need to use their resources effectively to build a brand that is well known in the market.

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is defined as a measure of the extent to which a brand or product is recognized by potential customers. In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of brand awareness and how to boost your brand visibility.

The two most commonly studied components of brand awareness are associative and recall knowledge. Associative brand knowledge is consumer awareness of images, names, or symbols that are associated with a brand without associating them with the product category or brand. Recall knowledge is defined as the consumer’s ability to recognize and list all brands within a product category.

Much research has also been done on the relationship between brand awareness and brand attitude, including information search behaviors, purchase intentions, and performance expectations.

When customers have a positive purchase experience, they spread brand awareness and serve as brand ambassadors. 

What does it mean to build brand awareness?

Many business owners are still unsure of the benefits of building a strong brand image.

It helps to build strong relationships between consumers and businesses, offering multiple benefits for both parties. By increasing brand awareness across a variety of channels, business owners can improve their marketing efforts and maximize returns on their marketing investment. 

Why is brand awareness important and what are the benefits?

You build trust in your brand

Trust is one of the most powerful tools for influencing customer loyalty, and good brand awareness is crucial for this. The more people believe in your brands/logos, the more likely it is that they will choose to do business with you.

Crucial for Differentiation

Companies face the problem of competition in the market. The competition can come from similar products from other companies, or it can come from entirely different products. To gain customers, the brand needs to have certain qualities and make it clear that those qualities are unique.

It’s good to have your product stand out above other products in the market because it increases its chances of success and sales.

How does brand awareness affect sales?

Several studies have linked the degree of brand awareness with greater market share, repeat purchases, and higher sales revenues. The converse also holds true; companies whose brands are not well known have a higher risk of failure in the marketplace. So a strong brand awareness can influence your customer’s purchase decisions.

How do you measure brand awareness?

You can measure brand awareness using several methods which include surveys, questionnaires, web analytics, search reports and behavioral interview techniques. You can broadly categorize all the methods into two groups.

Quantitative Measures

Quantitative methods are more precise than qualitative methods. You should use both methods to get a precise measure of your brand awareness because they give you unique insights that can help you make better decisions. For example, qualitative research can tell you about people’s opinions, but quantitative research can show you what they know or remember about your brand.

Survey 

Here are some ideas for your survey.

• Have a list of ten brands, you ask the respondent to rate each brand from one (least favorable) to ten (most favorable). 
• You can ask them to choose their favorite brand.
• Ask them to choose familiar (or unfamiliar) brands.
• Ask them to choose a level of satisfaction with known brands.
• How do you benchmark against competitors?

Qualitative Measures

Quantitative numbers can help you paint the overall picture of your brand awareness. Qualitative is not exact numbers, but these tactics can still help you gauge who and how many people are aware of your brand. 

Track every effort, so you know which one is most effective.

The million-dollar question: how do you build brand awareness?

There are several strategies to create brand awareness and improve your company’s image. Here are some tips to increase your brand awareness effectively.

Memorable brand identity

One of the most important elements of digital media marketing is your brand identity. This helps your brand to be more memorable and establishes it as an authority among consumers. A strong identity helps to define your brand and strengthens it. 

Brand positioning

This is how you’re perceived as a brand. Your brand’s positioning is the first and most important component of a digital media campaign.
Simply put, a strong positioning helps your brand to claim a mind share in your prospective customer’s mind. It gives your brand a point of view and a voice that is undeniable. 

Earned coverage

Earned assets are the free exposure you get from customer reviews, mentions, PR, and word-of-mouth. If you’re just getting started and don’t understand the PR component, get a PR firm to help you. They’ll guide you throughout the process and create relationships with journalists so that you can launch a successful campaign. You can also get press coverage on different websites to help build your brand. If you’re doing it on your own, you must work on building relationships with journalists. Get press coverage of your product on different sites.

Paid Media 

You have no choice but to use paid advertising when your brand cannot get enough exposure on free media. Take advantage of paid advertising to put your brand above the rest. Most businesses use paid media to make the most of their resources. TV, newspaper, search advertising, social media advertising, native advertising, paid influencers, paid promotion platforms are some of the most common paid media options.

Paid advertising is a great way to make immediate traction, but it can also be expensive. For instance, TV ads and newspaper ads can cost millions of dollars per campaign. However, there are other effective ways to promote your brand that don’t cost as much, such as social media advertising, sponsored content sites, and native advertising.

Your assets aka Owned media

Owned media refers to anything a brand owns or controls on the Internet. Owned assets amplify campaigns and exploit the power of content marketing to build community and brand trust. It is useful to have a mix of owned media, such as blog posts, social posts, email, apps, social networking accounts, and other websites designed for specific audiences. However, these tools are not mutually exclusive, and there is value in owning and controlling multiple owned channels.

Focus on getting social media marketing right

Train your audience to head to social media to contact your brand first. Engage and don’t broadcast. Build a community where useful discussions happen.

Invest in content marketing

Your content is the key element that dictates the success of your marketing campaigns, so make sure you have solid content marketing strategies in place. 

Employee activation

Successful brands can only be created with collective marketing efforts. Make sure all your employees speak the same brand language and not just your marketing teams.

Delight your customers

Word of mouth marketing has the least amount of friction, so give your customers a reason to recommend you. Engaging customer experiences result in positive word of mouth, which results in sales, reputation, and a chance to build brand loyalty.

Create share-worthy content

Content is just as important for online consumer interest as a perfectly displayed product inventory or an excellent e-commerce site. Brands must create content that will be shared on social media to increase traffic, sales, and customer satisfaction. People don’t share everything online, but they share the things that are important to them. Virality depends on two elements: creating shareable content and building a community of people that want to talk about what you’ve made.

Measure your marketing initiatives

Set marketing objectives for your efforts and see how well they do against your goals. This information will come in handy next time you set your marketing budgets.

Prioritize your target customers over audience size.

Dig into your analytics to get audience insights. Don’t pick channels and partners just because they have a big audience, see if they include your target audience.