People have always been aware of everything surrounding them. They know who they are, their backgrounds, their surroundings, and the list go on. Generally speaking, awareness comes both internally and externally. Even if there is a constant awareness of everything around, its intensity changes. Well, now it is time to apply this when we talk about a brand. The following article will help our readers shape a better perspective about brand awareness and its importance.
What is Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness is a marketing term used to describe the level of consumers’ recognition of a brand or its products. To simplify it, brand awareness measures how memorable a brand is for the target audience. Creating brand awareness is an essential marketing strategy because, without it, customers will not buy your company’s products. Brand awareness is mandatory not only due to its impact on sales but also on consumers’ behavior. Making a brand remarkable is the core of every marketing strategy. It will create a brand identity that will build trust among consumers.
Since brand awareness measures to what extent your target knows your brand, it is important to differentiate between the two types of brand awareness. Don’t worry, it doesn’t sound as complicated as it seems! We can classify awareness in unaided and aided awareness.
Unaided brand awareness is recalling a brand name when presented with a cue. For example, the first thing that pops up in someone’s mind when they hear soda is Coca-Cola. In this case, Coca-Cola is the only brand that came across their mind when they had to associate soda with a name. Every company aims to have this “Top of Mind” state. Why? It simply indicates that people tend to recognize the products they use.
On the other side, we have aided brand awareness. This is the moment when a consumer chooses a brand among an entire list of other related brands. Therefore, if you are asked to pick your favorite soda between Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, or Reeds, you will choose Coca-Cola.
Brand awareness: Brand Recognition
Undoubtedly the most common mistake among people is related to brand recognition and brand recall. People hear the terms brand awareness, brand recognition, and brand recall and they automatically think all represent the same thing. Little did they know they are two different things!
Brand recognition refers to the minimal level of brand acknowledgment. In other words, people only know that this brand exists on the market and that’s it. Brand recognition is usually used to assess the awareness of a particular brand in a specific category. If you have connected the dots, you will see that brand recognition is another way to say “aided awareness”.
Brand awareness: Brand Recall
Since everything is related so far, you will easily understand that brand recall is another way of saying “unaided awareness”. Thus, it assesses how well someone associates a brand with a category. This was particularly mentioned above with Coca Cola case.
Brand recall, as well as brand recognition, is a method used for ad research. By doing so, companies will get a better understanding of the impact of their advertising campaigns on consumers’ minds.
How to Increase Brand Awareness
Now that we covered some of the basic information, let’s move on to the practical details! Increasing your brand awareness is perhaps one of the most challenging parts. Unfortunately, you cannot skip it. Luckily for you, we came up with a list of tips on how to increase brand awareness that we hope will be relevant and useful.
Influencers can help you increase your brand awareness
We live in a digital era, where people manage to expand their horizons when it comes to growing brand awareness. To begin with, one easy thing you can do in order to gain popularity in the market is to partner with influencers. A great majority of people follow influencers nowadays to find out the new trends or new products. If you experience difficulties in reaching out to your audience, you should consider touching base with their favorite influencers. The reason we recommend this is due to recent studies that have shown how people tend to trust more influencers’ recommendations than traditional ads. Influencers have a key role because not only they can promote your brand, but also they can write content for you. Like it or not, they know how to write unique content that resonates with their audience.
By doing SEO you can put your brand on Google’s first page
Did you know that people do not scroll past the first page on Google when searching for a topic? This is exactly why you should pay attention to search engine optimization. It might be easier said than done, but do not get intimidated! SEO helps you get your content seen by Google on search results pages and it’s crucial for the online presence of your brand.
Be active on social media
Focus on your social media! The whole purpose of social media management is to maximize your organic traffic and presence in the online environment. How can you do that? They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That being said, use platforms like Facebook or Instagram to post creative content together with your message. Instagram will help you attract the attention of potential customers, while Facebook can create and maintain a community. Twitter is another social media platform that will help you increase your brand awareness. Though some businesses neglect Twitter, you must know that it provides you with the ability to share news as well as interacting with existing customers. All in all, the previously mentioned social media platforms enable you to launch brand-awareness campaigns. These campaigns will not only improve your audience reach but also your brand recall.
Set up a voice for your brand
Lastly, create a voice for your brand. Establishing a voice for your brand will make your audience recall your brand. May it be funny, sentimental, or smart, it needs to resonate with your target market. Needless to say, the brand voice must represent the company itself. Before jumping in the cold water, think about what do you want to express through your brand.
Is Brand Awareness Important?
The answer is yes! Even if people underrate the importance of brand awareness, you should know that 82% of consumers prefer to acquire goods from brands that they already know. Brand awareness is the first step of the marketing funnel. So, without it, your brand will not even cross consumers’ minds. It is of utmost importance that consumers know your brand because they will consider it in the decision-making process of buying a good. Moreover, brand awareness builds and maintains customer relationships. You will not want your brand to be known for the wrong reasons!
Taking all the aspects mentioned above into consideration, we must say that brand awareness is a complex concept that can be measured as well as increased through various ways. In order to see what works better for your brand to need to try out new things until you get the hang of it. After giving a look at this article, we hope that you gained some basic knowledge about brand awareness that you will successfully apply when it comes to your brand.
FAQ
What are the benefits of brand awareness?
Build your brand equity, increase customer loyalty, increase sales, increase word-of-mouth marketing and keep your brand on the top of the audience’s mind.
How to increase brand awareness online?
Use social media, perform Search Engine Optimization, brand your links.
What is brand awareness strategy?
A set of marketing tactics that help businesses grow their audience, spread their message, and create brand recognition.