Do your ideal customers know that you exist?
Brand awareness isn’t just about people recognizing your name or logo. It’s also about them being familiar with your products or services… so that they think of you first when they want to purchase a product or service that you provide.
If your potential customers don’t know about you or don’t know what you sell, then they’re likely to end up buying from one of your competitors – someone whose brand they are aware of.
Here’s how you can get your brand seen more widely, so that it sticks in people’s minds:
#1: Encourage customers to share testimonials on social media
One very simple thing to do is to encourage your customers to talk about what they’ve bought from you. This is obviously easier for some businesses than others: it helps if your product or service is one that people are excited about and would enjoy sharing.
Often, simply asking customers to share their experience is enough to get some testimonials coming in. You might also provide some extra encouragement: for instance, you might share your favorite testimonials from your company’s account, or you could hold an Instagram contest and award prizes to customers who share the best Instagram posts about your brand (which could be photos of themselves using your products, video testimonials about your brand, etc.).
(If you do run any kind of contest, though, make sure that you’re abiding by the rules of the social platform in question.)
#2: Use a referral program
Another great way to get your name out there is to have a referral program, where customers get some form of incentive for encouraging their friends to sign up as customers. This works particularly well for SaaS (Software as a Service) companies – Dropbox, for instance, offers extra space for inviting your friends to try Dropbox, and many services will extend a customer’s subscription for free if they sign up a friend.
Whatever type of business you run, however, you could offer referral incentives such as:
- Money-off vouchers for your customers’ next purchase
- Freebies of some sort (these could be branded, too)
#3: Produce (high-quality) guest content for other websites
Getting your brand out there onto other websites can be a brilliant way to build brand awareness: if you’re being featured on several of the sites that a potential customer reads, they’ll be bound to notice you.
This is also great for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as it allows you to build links back from other sites to your own – further helping your brand to be seen, as you’ll be more likely to rank highly in search engines.
You could write a guest article or blog post, offer to be interviewed on a podcast or on the site’s blog, or even produce an infographic or video. The key is to create something that’s as high-quality as possible: this could be your first and only chance to make a great impression on a potential customer.
#4: Use remarketing to recapture visitors who left your website
Remarketing or retargeting is a great way to recapture visitors who came to your website but left without purchasing anything.
Perhaps someone clicked a link to your product to check it out, but then got distracted. Maybe they decided against purchasing immediately. By retargeting that person, you can invite them back… and, as a bonus, help them become more aware of your brand.
Even if people don’t click on your retargeted ads, they’ll still often see them and may well remember your site, meaning they’ll be more likely to visit again later.
#5: Tag influencers in (relevant) tweets and posts
Want a great way to build brand awareness without spending any money, and with minimal time investment? Tag influencers or people prominent in your field in your tweets or social media posts.
Obviously, you shouldn’t do this when it’s not relevant, or you’ll quickly annoy the very people you’re hoping will visit your site or your social media profiles. But if you write about someone on your blog, review their product, or quote them, you can mention that on social media – and tag them so that they (and potentially their followers, depending on the social network and their personal settings) see it.
This can often lead to your posts being shared by the influencer(s) in question, potentially showcasing your brand to a much larger audience. To some extent, it also helps you by creating an association between your brand and a trusted influencer in the audience’s mind.
#6: Give away freebies to customers and potential customers
Brand awareness isn’t just built online, of course. How often have you been to a conference or event and come back with a handful of free pens, notebooks, and other “swag”? Many, many businesses give out freebies to raise brand awareness – and this is a popular technique because it works!
You might want to go beyond free pens if you want to be memorable: think about what fits well with your brand (e.g., a beverage company might give away branded reusable water bottles) and don’t give away anything that contradicts your brand’s values (if you want to be known for your plastic-free packaging, then giving away cheap plastic pens definitely isn’t a good option).
You need to be proactive about building brand awareness: if you’re not doing well at this, a lot of your potential customers will end up buying from your competitors simply because they don’t know you exist.
The good news is that there’s a lot you can do to create better brand awareness for your company – without necessarily spending much money or time on it. Pick one of the above tips that you could implement this week, and give it a try.
One easy way to get some traction for your brand and start building brand awareness is by installing social media share buttons on your blog or website, enabling your readers and visitors to share your content with their social media connections with a single click. As you create engaging content and more people share it, you’ll start growing your audience (and improving brand awareness) effortlessly.
