How can you, as a business owner, help your brand to stand out from the crowded competition?
The internet is teeming with brands not unlike your own. Traditional advertisements have eaten up every last inch of adspace. Grabbing consumer attention is no easy task these days.
And yet, getting the word out about your brand and becoming memorable in the minds of consumers are not impossible goals to strive towards. The secret is that you must build brand awareness.
For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the term “brand awareness,” this term refers to the relationship between consumers and a particular business brand in the following ways:
● A typical consumer’s ability to recognize a particular brand,
● And the growing scope of consumers who have knowledge of, or have had
direct experience with, that brand.
The emphasis is always on increasing both the number of consumers who have heard of the brand and the depth of understanding those consumers’ have about the brand. The ultimate goal of brand
awareness is to convert consumers into loyal customers, of course.
What business wouldn’t want to become a “household name”? We can’t think of one, which is why we’ve put together four powerful methods you can implement right now to spread awareness
about your brand both online and in person.
In this article, you will learn about:
● Using Native Ads on Social Media Platforms
● Promoting Your Brand Through Local Event Sponsorships
● Partnering with Local, Complementary, Non-Competing Businesses
● Launching Automated Retargeting Campaigns
Native advertising refers to purchasing paid ad space on social media platforms and using that ad space to launch posts that match the look, feel, and purpose of user-created content.
Native ads are extremely effective because social media users that encounter these types of ads in their feeds initially assume the content was posted by one of the accounts they’re following. This causes them to take a closer look and figure out where the content is coming from. Once they do, these users become interested, click the call-to-action included in the native ad, and immediately land on the brand’s website, eCommerce store, or social media account, depending on the actual CTA.
Try these content ideas to get your native ads to stand out on social media:
● Use infographics, strong visuals, and short videos
● Include CTAs that offer demos, free trials, and samples
● Provide interactive content such as quizzes and surveys
LOCAL EVENT SPONSORSHIP
Event sponsorships are a way for brands to advertise during real-world, local events. “Sponsoring” an event in this manner involves financially supporting the event, but that financial support could—and should—come in the form of providing free products to attendees.
Sponsorship marketing works in terms of spreading brand awareness locally due to the fact that providing free items to event attendees leaves a far more positive impression on them than any traditional advertisement could. When you sponsor a local event, people will infer that your business cares deeply about the cause that the event is all about, such as the fight against hunger, breast cancer prevention, or preserving the environment. A positive association between your brand and the cause you’re sponsoring will form in the attendees mind.
These sponsorship products will spread awareness about your brand without breaking the bank:
● Have bottled water custom labeled with your company’s brand and hand
them out at charity races, farmers’ markets, and other local events
● Donate a photo booth station at seasonal community events and be sure
the exterior and interior backdrop clearly present your company’s brand and
logo
● Supply teachers’ conventions, students’ summer programs, and other educational events with branded pens and notepads
Do you own a pet supply store? The nearby animal shelter is a complementary organization that doesn’t compete with your business. A fitness center franchise does not directly compete with athletic apparel retailers to gain members, which means these two businesses complement one another and if partnered, could increase each other’s brand awareness.
Partnering with complementary, non-competing businesses is a great way to “cross pollinate” with the loyal audiences of other brands. This method of building brand awareness is advantageous because any audience will be inclined to trust the recommendation of a brand they’re already loyal to. When the business you’ve partnered with tells their customer base about your awesome brand, including the products or services you offer, those customers will trust the recommendation, check out your business website or location, and potentially become your new customers.
For low or no cost methods of spreading awareness about your brand via partnerships with other businesses, try these:
● Forge guest blogging arrangements and publish each other’s blog articles to spread awareness about each company’s expertise
● Host Q&A sessions, interviewing one another to establish expert authority, and post the edited video and / or audio interviews on YouTube, podcast platforms like Spotify, and other social media platforms
● Display digital content, ad campaigns, and other visuals on each other’s digital signage, whether in-store at retail locations or in the waiting rooms of professional offices such as law firms, accounting firms, dental offices, and other private practices
AUTOMATED RETARGETING CAMPAIGNS
Any website or eCommerce store constantly collects data about the visitors who land on each URL page. This technology tracks and records whether a visitor becomes a buying customer or leaves the website altogether. You can launch digital marketing campaigns that target all of your website visitors who did not become buyers. This type of campaign is called a retargeting campaign.
The fact of the matter is that 97% of visitors who land on your website or eCommerce store for the first time will end up leaving without having made a purchase. Statistically, these visitors will not come back unless they are reminded of the value of the products available on your website. By launching an automated retargeting campaign, you can succeed at influencing first-time visitors to return to your website. Even if they don’t purchase anything upon returning, the campaign itself will expose them to your brand again, which will increase their awareness of your brand.
Effective retargeting strategies that succeed at driving website and eCommerce store traffic include:
● Choose one of your website’s URLs and create an automated retargeting campaign that goes after all prior visitors of that specific URL
● Segment your website visitors into groups based on which stage of the “buyer’s journey” they’re in, either the awareness stage, the consideration stage, or the decision stage; and market to these distinct groups accordingly
● Once a website visitor converts into a customer, exclude them from your retargeting campaigns, but include them in all campaigns that target current, returning, and loyal customers
THE BOTTOM LINE
Building brand awareness might be a challenge for your company. Just remember, it isn’t going to happen overnight. It takes time. But if you implement the strategies we covered in this article and take consistent measures to review campaign performance analytics and make adjustments that improve campaign reach, then you should see an increase in brand awareness that grows slowly and steadily in the long run.
How can you measure brand awareness as you go? Try using the following methods:
● Brand Recall—Where does your brand rank among the competition?
● Organic Traffic—Is your business visible on Google and other search engines?
● Social Mentions—How positive or negative is public perception of your brand on social media?
● Visitor Loyalty—Are visitors converting into buyers and returning time and again to shop?
● Email Engagement—How are your email campaigns performing in terms of click-throughs and conversions?
● Content Reach—Is your target audience responding to your branded messaging?
Do you want to spread awareness about your brand, but aren’t sure you have time to manage these brand-building strategies? FTx 360 can handle it. Our digital marketing specialists and reputation management experts can devise a personalized brand awareness campaign strategy for you based on your unique business. Contact us now to get started.
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