Strong brand awareness keeps you top of mind when customers need your services.
We all have hundreds—if not thousands—of interactions every day with one brand or another. As a result, if you were asked to name some prominent brands, you could probably do so quite easily. In fact, you probably know multiple brand names for any number of product ranges.
Athletic shoes? Nike. Adidas. Reebok.
Cell phone carriers? Verizon. Sprint. T-Mobile.
Toothpaste? Colgate. Crest. Arm & Hammer.
Chances are, you probably not only know of these brands, you have some very specific associations with them. You know which ones are considered the most reliable, which ones are affordable, which ones are up-scale, etc. And even though you may not need this information very often, when you go to buy something in their market, you will draw on that information to make your purchases.
Why is brand awareness important for my business?
Now, you may be thinking “I’m not a huge brand like Nike or Coca Cola. Do I need the same level of brand awareness?” Well, no. You don’t need the same level of brand awareness as some of the top brands in the world, but you do need to raise your profile above that of your competition. In fact, the more you can raise your profile, the more you’ll be able to draw in qualified customers who want your services.
Consider for a moment your sales cycle. How frequently can you sell to a single customer? If you’re Starbucks, you can be selling every day. Multiple times in a day, even. And there’s obviously a lot of value in constant, subtle reminders that now might be a great time for a coffee.
But if you’re selling cars, you probably don’t sell to the same person more than once or twice a decade. That person will go years without thinking about your business. But when the time comes? You want to be the first company to spring to mind. Brand awareness is what gets you there.
How can my website build brand awareness?
Your website will be at the core of your brand awareness strategy, but that doesn’t mean every strategy will happen on your website. Rather, your strategy should involve a mix of inbound strategies (content designed to attract organic traffic), and outbound methods (where you will need to intervene to attract attention).
Inbound strategies include content creation and keyword research. Outbound strategies involve advertising and remarketing. If you’re looking for more ways to grow your business’s brand awareness, here are eight techniques you can use to catch your customer’s eye.
1. Write regular blog content.
We talk to many businesses who express a strong desire to educate their client base. They have a lot of information they want to share, and they believe that by sharing it, they will establish themselves as industry experts. And of course, with expertise comes a growth in customer trust. The problem is, while they believe in this strategy, they aren’t sure how to execute it.
Fortunately, this is what your blog is for. Blogs are the perfect opportunity to write long-form content that dives into exactly the kind of informative content visitors need. When businesses write regular content, they not only establish their deep knowledge base, they create for themselves a reason to stay in the spotlight.
In short, blogs do far more than provide SEO fodder. They educate potential clients, establish industry leadership, and offer a means of staying top of mind. Which, of course, is what brand awareness is all about.
2. Design compelling infographics.
Infographics have many virtues—they showcase information in a manner that’s easy to digest, they engage readers through interesting graphics, and they earn a lot of shares on social media. In fact, many people will save a good infographic for later use, even if they don’t return to it for a few years.
All this makes infographics a prime tool for raising brand awareness. So long as you have your brand name and logo attached to the graphic, it can be shared far and wide and still be doing good work for your business. And as a reference resource, it grows your credibility. In fact, they’re one of the most popular content forms for many Internet users, which makes them highly attractive for your website.
3. Create downloadable content.
Like infographics, high-value PDFs (white papers, case studies, etc.) also offer your business a chance to cement your brand’s reputation among potential clients. In fact, a well-designed piece of downloadable content (DLC) is a hybrid of an infographic and an extended blog post, where in-depth written content is laid out in a graphically pleasing way.
While DLCs don’t usually have the same sharing power as infographics, they do have higher prestige as authoritative content sources. Visitors who take the time to download and read your DLC aren’t likely to forget what they read, and will keep that info in the back of their minds as they make buying decisions.
4. Post to social media.
Brand awareness may be the number one reason to post to social media. Not only do customers who follow your brand see your posts when they go out, but they can share them with their followers as well. Social media also offers ways to boost your posts to reach a wider audience, which can help get your brand in front of people who don’t otherwise know about you.
5. Nurture email lists.
Do you have a way to capture emails on your site (such as through a piece of downloadable content)? If so, carefully-timed emails can be a gentle reminder to subscribers that you’re still doing business. These shouldn’t all be sales emails. Instead, you can use them as a chance to share your latest blog content, share a mood board showing different ways to use or style your products, or offer some weekly tips to help your subscribers accomplish their goals.
The point is, while you don’t want to overwhelm your subscribers with meaningless email, if you have something of value to offer, contact them is a low-pressure way to follow up and put your name forward.
6. Build a keyword strategy.
Ranking for industry-related keywords is an important factor in any good brand awareness strategy. By consistently showing up in search results, you prove to online shoppers that you are a key player in your industry.
Of course, you will need to do some keyword research ahead of time make sure you show up for relevant search terms. Find out what terms your customers might search for that would lead them to your business, and then create a content strategy that targets those terms. By doing so, you will not only attract more visitors to your site, but you will attract the kind of visitor that has most need of your products and services.
7. Target remarketing campaigns.
You may think that you don’t need to market to people who have already come to your store, but you’d be mistaken. A carefully-planned remarketing strategy can reinforce your brand and remind visitors of what they were looking for.
Think of it like branding on a shopping bag. You could give your customers generic shopping bags, but then they wouldn’t have anything to remind them of your brand after they left your store. On the other hand, if your logo is on their bags, they they’ll see it again when they get home and unload their purchases, and probably again if they store that bag in their pantry and decide to use it again later.
Remarketing is like that. Your visitors know who you are, but by putting your brand in front of them after they leave your site, they have another reason to remember you later.
8. Run pay per click ads.
Similar to your keyword strategy, when visitors search for keywords related to your brand, you want to be advertising in that space. Even if searchers never click on your ad, having your ads present means they will see your name associated with the information they are looking for. If they spend some time researching one day, they may find your brand appearing next to several search results. This could then lead to them searching for your brand directly a few days later.
Grow your brand awareness and establish your reputation.
Raising brand awareness is a way for businesses to control the conversation about their business. When you tell your own story, you have the opportunity to craft a narrative around your company, the products you sell, and the people who work with. Your reputation is too important to leave to chance.