Brand awareness is extremely important if a business wants to succeed in a competitive business environment. As an entrepreneur, on the lookout for growth and success, it is necessary that you work on increasing your brand awareness. Brand awareness is a marketing concept defined as a consumer's ability to recognize or recall the brand in sufficient detail to make a purchase. It is related to the trace in memory, which we can measure as the consumer's ability to identify the brand under different conditions.
In common parlance, brand awareness means the number of times your brand or product name comes up in conversations. The more often your brand name pops up, the better chances you have for generating interest and sales. So, proper brand awareness can have a positive impact on your product sales, and hence your business’s growth.
Importance of brand awareness in driving consumer Behaviour
Consumer buying decisions are based on brand awareness. During the product selection, consumers generally go for those brands which they recall. It may also be that the consumer recalls a product in the context of a specific product category. However, awareness increases the probability that other products of that same brand also become a part of the consumer’s consideration set. Like in the case of Nestle’s Maggie, noodles as well as its spice sachets ‘Maggie Masala Magic’, sold separately, are also hot sales.
Brand awareness is, thus, necessary for two important reasons:
It increases sales
Consumers choose brands with strong reputations. The visibility of your brand will embed a picture in the consumer’s mind. Growing your brand will help to boost your sales. It will give you a competitive advantage. When people are more familiar with your brand, they are more likely to buy your products. On the contrary, if they do not associate your business’s name or logo, they might opt for something else. Let them know what makes you or your product unique. Visibility influences buyers’ trust in you. Trust can drive sales. However, you must also be careful of customer service to your client. Poor service can hurt brand awareness.
It increases loyalty
By building brand awareness, businesses can also build customer loyalty. It is a critical component of increasing revenue. Finding new customers can cost many times more than selling to your existing customer base. However, a small percentage of customer retention can drive a 25-95% increase in your sales revenue.
Strategies for Brand Awareness
Certain marketing tactics can help small businesses in creating brand awareness for their products and services. Marketing strategies help in promoting a brand message in a target market. Some of the brand awareness strategies that small business owners can implement are:
Create a logo and tagline
A creative and catchy logo for your small business can help you stand out in the crowd. You need not spend thousands of dimes to make a logo ready. If you are even slightly creative, there are a number of free platforms like Canva, Designhill, 99designs, and many more, where you can create a design of your own. Otherwise, you can always hire an expert to design one for you.
Create a catchy tagline, as well, to jingle with your logo. Some taglines become the song for the ears. And believe me, it helps retain customers always. The Tata Sky tagline, “Isko laga dala to life zingala’ has never left buzzing in our eardrums. We are the proud customers of the brand since the time it arrived in the market. So, spending some time, energy, and money on the logo and tagline is worth it!
Make Social Media Work for your business
Small business owners! Why worry when Social Media is here? It has a huge share in creating many renowned brands today. Make use of the easiest marketing tools like Facebook Page, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. to make your presence felt in the targeted customer segment. Social media penetration can never be overlooked if you want to create a buzzing sound in your prospective customer’s mind. Even large companies with strong market sense have pages on these sites. Think on creating a longer relationship with the users to make them your customers. Create content that imprints in their minds, so that your brand becomes the first name they recall during their purchase spree. But make sure that you do not overwhelm them with too many posts.
Tie-up with Social Media Influencers
Influencers have a huge fan following of their own. So whatever, they market, their fans agree to it. Hence, cooperating with them can help you reach a further audience, which otherwise would have been out of your reach. Influencers help spread your product and services’ content, and thereby build brand awareness for you. They also legitimize your message that the audience finds hard to not believe. However, you need to choose the right influencer for building awareness for your brand. There needs to be synchronicity in what they do or believe in, and what your brand stands for.
Work on Search Engine Optimisation
These days, business is for those who rank high on Google pages, who are search engine optimized! According to Search Engine Watch, businesses listed at the top of Google’s search, receive around 35% of the traffic. This percentage decrease with descending listing rank. Small businesses thus need to put more effort into this aspect to build brand awareness. SEO is not just about keywords; it includes technical aspects as well, for example, page loads, page feeds, and loading speed. You can try out some free tools like Bing Webmaster, Google Analytics, MozCast, etc. for doing the SEO part or you can take the help of some SEO professional. SEO really works for your visibility among your competitors.
Partnering with local businesses
Always remember, your customers are everywhere. All you need is a proper search. Local markets can be the first step to your growth. Partnering with other local businesses can propel your visibility and brand awareness. It is like working with social media influencers. You can always team up with respected complementary businesses of your locality. That way, it protects the market share of your partner and increases awareness of your product. If you are a caterer of energy bars, try tying up with the local gyms.
Keep Doing Remarketing Campaigns
It’s not unusual for buyers to visit your shop or website, and leave without buying. Remarketing helps to convert the unconverted buyer into your customer. Remind your customers about your presence from time to time. Run engaging ads or offer freebies on your products on your websites, and other websites as well. Once they start seeing your business everywhere, they will definitely make another attempt to complete their incomplete business with you. Purchase! The benefit of remarketing is that it will give a larger-than-life image to your small business. This way, in no time, your business will become larger in the true sense.
These first-hand brand awareness strategies will help your small business grow leaps and bounds. So readers! do add any other strategy you know for our small business owner friends. Comments are always welcome!
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Marketing