What is Brand Awareness?: Everything You Need to Know
A company can have a powerful message, perfect marketing tactics, and a solid advertising strategy, but without brand awareness—the margin for success is low.
But what is brand awareness?
Brand awareness is the exposure of your company/products and the unity between what’s being sold and how the consumers are engaging.
It takes multiple impressions for a customer to engage in a company’s brand or message. And without a solid branding strategy, those impressions aren’t memorable, turning people away rather than keeping them interested.
Over 89% of marketers say that branding is their top goal. With that percentage only increasing, it’s important to know what brand awareness is. It’s also important to create a strong brand to build both your reach and growth.
First: What is Brand Awareness?
Your brand encompasses your name, logo, messaging, services, and content created and packaged in a way that relates to clients.
But simply having a brand isn’t enough.
Brand awareness is creating a brand that’s both recognizable and relatable. And whether the brand builds a relationship, creates a sense of trust, or simply engages potential buyers, it gives a business an edge over the competition.
Over 64% of consumers cite shared values as the reason they connect with a company. But if these values aren’t being conveyed—through brand awareness, rather than simply recognition—the potential to truly connect with those individuals is lost.
Brand recognition is when a consumer sees the colors, logo, or design and makes the connection with who your company is. The awareness piece goes a step further, giving connection to not only the name, but to the general feeling about a company, too.
The Value of Building Brand Awareness
Building brand awareness directly helps to promote your business, boost your reputation, help you find (and retain) loyal customers, and give you a strategy for introducing new products and services.
If you’re aware of how your business is being perceived and what your audience is connecting with, it will help you become a business that people can trust.
As you grow your business, you’ll learn the value of high impact branding—for example, Kleenex. You’ll hear people say, “I need a Kleenex” simply meaning a tissue, but because of the strong brand awareness of the company, it’s fully beat out all competition.
How to Build Solid Brand Awareness
If you’re looking to build brand awareness, it’s important to highlight attributes that set your company apart. From creating a custom hashtag to being active in the local community, you can easily create something that’s uniquely ‘yours.’
Social Media
An important aspect of brand awareness is social media and creating a unified profile, message, and voice throughout. This makes the step between posts and advertising strategy more natural, too.
Communicate
Finding ways to directly connect with your customers is key. If you’re only connecting when you’re trying to push a sale, your customers will see that. If you’re engaging in conversation through your posts, message boards, question forums, etc. then there are more opportunities for people to get to know what you offer and why you’re the right fit.
Be A Person, Not Just A Company
Another key aspect of awareness is to think about being a person, not a company. You don’t simply want to shove content in your potential buyer’s face—you want to get to know him or her, and you want to share who you are, too.
Along with this is creating a personality. When your company feels human and unique it creates a sense of authenticity that drives consumers back again and again.
Share a Story
Your brand should tell a story. Creating a narrative around who you are, how you started, and what the value of your products/services is will give your business depth.
People connect to stories as they share a more human side to a company (again, think about being a person and not a company).
Offer Some Value
Consumers are inherently selfish. Oftentimes they want to engage with a company or brand because of what’s in it for them. While this isn’t wrong, it’s important (as a business) to connect and offer consumers some type of benefit.
From a free product to giveaways, it’s smart to give your potential customers something. Giving your customers a taste of what you offer will entice them to come back to your company for a future sale.
Understanding and Measuring Brand Awareness
As your business grows, you can measure your brand awareness through direct traffic, through social engagement (both followers and direct engagements—comments, likes, etc.), and through brand awareness surveys that you send directly to customers.
Although some aspects of your branding won’t necessarily be measurable, as your audience builds organically you can see how to directly connect to them to continue your business growth.
Now You’re Ready to Get Started
Although answering the question, ‘What is brand awareness?’ may seem difficult at first, when you understand the value of creating something memorable, relatable, and recognizable, that’s the first step.
From there, implementing strategies for connection and growth will help you create campaigns, advertising, marketing, and visuals that speak to what your company is and stands for.
To learn more about brand awareness and for more branding samples and ideas, click here.