How to Increase Brand Awareness for Your Online Business

Brand awareness is the way in which customers can identify and remember your brand or your particular products and services. 

Think about it – have you ever asked for a Kleenex instead of a tissue? Or referenced wearing Nikes rather than trainers? These are both examples of brand awareness on a massive scale.

While smaller businesses may not reach this level of brand awareness, you can still achieve brand visibility and attract customers to your store, especially if you follow our steps below.

For example, a customer may type your brand name into Google knowing that you can provide the product they’re looking for, or a user may know that your social media post will be funny after getting to know your brand.

Building brand awareness is important because it helps customers recognize and gravitate towards your brand in various environments.

If you can successfully build brand awareness within your target market, you can ensure that your brand is always at the forefront of their minds when they want to make a purchase. 

If a potential customer is already familiar with your brand, they’ll be more likely to purchase from you than a competitor whose brand they don’t recognize.

Some of the main benefits of building brand awareness include:

• Fostering trust in your brand
• Creating an association with your brand and products
• Building brand equity

There are different types of brand awareness that you can build, such as:

Brand recognition 

This is when customers are able to tell two or more brands apart. Customers know what they sell, and can differentiate the logos and colors used across their branding. 

Brand dominance 

Brand dominance is when a customer associates just one brand for a specific product. For example, Coca-Cola has brand dominance over the cola drink, even though there are other brands that also produce the fizzy drink.

Top-of-mind awareness  

Top-of-mind awareness is when your brand is the first brand that people think of for a specific product category. This suggests that your brand name is the most recognized among your competitors. 

Building brand awareness within your target audience doesn’t happen overnight, but if you put some of the following tips on how to increase brand awareness into place, you can make a lasting impression on your audience. 

Storytelling and creating a narrative is a great way to build brand awareness. A narrative gives your customers something real for them to connect with. 

Creating a narrative around your brand gives it a human angle, and it allows you to market your brand alongside your individual products and services. 

People like hearing authentic stories that are related to your brand, whether it’s detailing your brand’s history or your plans for the future. 

A strong narrative allows people to connect with your brand which is a key step toward building brand awareness. 

Social media plays a large part in increasing your brand awareness, and having a solid social media presence will provide your brand with much-needed social proof.

Social proof boots your brand’s reputation and ensures you’re presenting yourself online as a reliable company. 

If a customer lands on your website but can’t find out anything else about you, it doesn’t leave a good impression. Engaging on social media channels, however, will help to prove you’re a reliable brand that can be trusted. 

Putting effort into building your social media presence opens up your brand to a wider audience, helping to increase the number of people your messaging and brand can reach.

Word-of-mouth is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness, and setting up a referral program allows you to monitor its success.

A referral program helps turn your loyal customers into your biggest advocates. 

Most brands will offer customers a discount or offer every time they refer a friend. An incentive like this encourages those who already shop with you to recommend a new customer, boosting your brand awareness. 

Not only does a referral program help to spread your brand name far and wide, but it also adds a new level of reliability to your brand since customers discover your brand through people they trust.

When it comes to your content marketing strategy, having a blog on your website has various brand-boosting benefits, but guest posting on other blogs is also a great way of increasing your brand awareness.

Writing a guest post that’s featured on another website opens up your brand – and your expertise – to a whole new audience. 

Take the time to research relevant guest blogs that accept submissions. You want to find websites that are within the same industry as you and whose audience falls within your target market. 

Be prepared to provide lots of details when pitching your guest post, and research topic ideas that will help to position you as an expert and boost your online profile. 

SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is perhaps the best way to get brand awareness. 

If you can optimize your website to ensure it appears in search results for relevant search terms, you’ll be presenting your brand to thousands of potential customers. 

Once your website appears in search listings, even if it’s not the number one result, your brand visibility will improve, and people will begin to associate your brand with their search query. 

Incorporating keywords into the content of your website, building a backlink profile, and ensuring your website offers an excellent user experience all go towards boosting your search rankings. 

Running online ads are a great way of boosting your brand awareness, and they can be delivered in various ways.

You can use social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, place an ad on another website, or implement a paid search campaign via Google. 

If you make sure you place your ads in relevant places – where they fit in with the rest of the content available – you’ll then be able to target your key audience demographics and new customers. 

Non-intrusive and relevant online adverts can, depending on where you place them and how much budget you put behind them, get your brand in front of millions of new eyes. 

Influencers are the new celebrities, and they could be exactly what you need to boost your brand awareness and get your brand seen by your target audience. 

Influencers have engaged followings on various platforms, including social media, YouTube, and blogs. They then partner with brands that their audience would be interested in to promote products and services. 

If you can find influencers who are relevant to your services and whose audience matches your target demographic, you can partner with them to promote your brand and your products.

Consumers trust the opinions of the influencers they follow, meaning an endorsement for your brand can boost your brand awareness and increase your customer base extensively. 

Brand awareness is a powerful practice, and it’s crucial if you want to build a successful brand online. 

The term “brand awareness” covers an array of elements, including recognizing, remembering, and trusting your brand, and building that visibility requires multiple strategies. We’ve also written about some of the best brand guideline examples. 

If you put some of the tips in this article into practice, from creating your own brand narrative to improving your SEO, you’ll have the potential to get your brand in front of thousands of new customers. 

Be sure to implement these tips into your own wider brand and marketing strategy and come back to the comments to let us know your results! 

More information

• Increase your reach by selling globally. Here’s a guide to the best global online marketplaces to get you started.
• Try product sampling, and introduce customers to your range of products
• Create a YouTube channel, and attract a wider audience. See the best Youtube channel name examples here
• Learn how to introduce a customer loyalty program.
• Understanding the importance of a brand extension and what it could do to your business.