8 Ways You Can Increase Your Brand Awareness

If you have a product or service to sell, but no one knows that you exist, you have to invest in brand-building before you start generating revenue. 

This holds true for both solopreneurs and businesses (both B2B and B2C). 

A part of building your brand is to increase brand awareness. In layman’s terms, ask yourself how many people know that your brand exists?

If you’re at zero, don’t worry. This quick guide will walk you through 8 ways you can get started. 

Method #1: Offer Custom Merchandise

This works well if you have some brand recognition but want to improve it. Start running polls, quizzes, or contests online and offer custom merchandise. Before you start thinking this is not a good idea for you since you don’t have manufacturing capabilities, try print on-demand services. 

This service allows you to create your design and manufacture almost any product with the design on it, and they also take care of shipping for you. You can try print-on-demand shirts since that is a popular category. You can also try socks, water bottles, phone cases, and other accessories to add your branding and design on.

Method #2: Start with SEO

SEO or search engine optimization is a good way to be found. When users enter certain keywords, and you have pages optimized for those, they will find your site and learn about you. This works well since people prefer to shop online.

In 2021, over 2.14 billion people worldwide are expected to shop online. So, if you want to be a well-known brand, you have to start marketing yourself digitally, and SEO is at the core of it. 

Method #3: Run Paid Ads 

Of course, SEO is not the right choice for all brands. A lot of brands at the beginning of their journey rely on paid ads to increase visibility. This can be implemented in several different ways. You can run display ads on Google, target professionals on LinkedIn, consumers on Instagram, and Snapchat. 

There are different types of ads that allow you to achieve a different goal, but with a definitive strategy and tracking those goals, you can pull off a great brand awareness campaign.

Method #4: Try Influencer Marketing

Aside from paid ads, you can also spend money on influencer marketing to increase your reach. Companies like Fashion Nova have been marketed purely due to influencer tie-ups. It is an expensive route if you are in a crowded space, but you can also make use of niche influencers that have a small but engaged community.

Method #5: Host User-Generated Content

User-generated content online is a good way for other consumers to find out about you. Encourage your existing users to share your product or service information online and tag you. You can incentivize this by offering free merchandise, upgrades, a cash prize, among other things. 

GoPro used user-generated content to become the well-known brand it is today. They encouraged users to share pictures and videos that they had taken with their GoPro, and the brand would then repost it on their account. 

Method #6: Become Visible on Social Media

Social media takes time, but it is definitely worth the effort. That explains why social media budgets are going to double in the next 3 years. 

There are many platforms to choose from but focus on where your target audience hangs out and start creating content for the platform. A lot of brands look at social media as a distribution platform that works to an extent, but social media should be looked at as a separate marketing channel. 

You can increase brand awareness by jumping on viral trends and using the right hashtags for improved visibility. 

There are other optimization techniques like posting consistently and posting at a certain time that can be scheduled through social media automation tools.

You may not see any returns on your investment immediately but know that social media will become a touchpoint for your users in their buyer journey.

Method #7: Start Guest Blogging

Guest blogging basically means you write content for a different site that includes a link to your site. It is great for SEO, but it is also good for brand awareness. If you choose a website that gets a lot of organic, high-quality traffic, the chances of them clicking to find out more about your site will dramatically increase. 

Again, this is not an easy task since it requires submitting pitches and creating outlines, and then creating drafts that meet the contributor guidelines, but it can be a great strategy, especially for B2B companies. 

To Conclude

Brand awareness is an ongoing project. Whether you are just starting or are established, every new product or service requires you to create a promotion and distribution strategy around it to help people make the mental connection of the product category with your brand. This means even if they are not interested in making a purchase today, they will certainly come back to you when it is decision time.