If you’re planning to build brand awareness effectively and in a lasting way, it’s important to be prolific and consistent. After all, the majority of people will only remember a brand after they have witnessed between 5 and 7 impressions.
Keeping everything “on brand” is key. Your brand needs to be recognisable. This goes not only for its logo and designated colours but also the tone of voice it uses and the type of content it produces.
If your brand appears regularly across multiple online platforms, it is more likely to pop into a potential customer’s head whenever they think of the type of product you sell or the services you provide.
Once a consumer recognizes your brand as one that is popular and trustworthy, it is highly likely that they will make repeat purchases and become a valuable regular customer.
So how do you go about establishing a brand and engaging your target audience in the most effective way possible?
In this article, our team of internet marketing specialists at Trustist will explain.
Producing content regularly
A good brand awareness strategy doesn’t only involve the prominent and attractive promotion of your products and services. It’s also important to ensure it remains consistently active online.
On average, if a brand has a regularly updated blog, it will generate 67% more leads. Every piece of content should focus on topics that are relevant to your field, no matter how tempting it is to comment on general current affairs.
Via your blog posts, you can share your opinions on recent developments in your sector, produce buyers’ guides and offer handy hints and tips. This will keep your customers engaged, while the regularity of your posting will help you to climb the search results.
Another effective element that every content marketer should understand is search engine optimization (SEO). This is an umbrella term for a series of techniques used to take advantage of the algorithms of search engines and ensure you appear higher in the results.
The smart use of search terms here is vital – and it costs absolutely nothing. Use free tools such as the keyword planner on Google Ads to research the most common terms entered into a search engine by members of your target audience.
These words and phrases can then be organically distributed throughout your content, making it more likely to perform well when users browse for products and services like yours.
Invest in advertising
While many online marketing techniques cost little to nothing, the old mantra rings true here – sometimes, you have to spend money to make money.
Ads – whether online or offline – are extremely effective. It’s worth setting aside funds for them. Don’t go overboard, of course; set a firm budget and stick to it.
The best approach is to create advertisements that feature a clear call to action and describe your products or services effectively and succinctly. Only include the necessary information.
Investing in online ads – including banners and links on social media – will keep you in the public eye and ensure that your target audience remains aware of your activities. Consistency is key – keep at it and you’ll see results.
Remember, companies that maintain their advertising campaigns through periods of recession always perform better, so the key is to persevere.
Build a strong social media presence
There are 3.2 billion social media users globally, with this number always growing. This is a huge audience, and by attracting followers, you’ll be able to interact with existing customers and advertise to new ones simultaneously. This will greatly improve your accessibility.
You can also use social media to promote your content via various platforms and share useful and relevant information from other sources. “Retweets”, shares and other interactions can also serve as backlinks to help your brand spread further across the web.
Using influencers to promote your products can also expand your customer base exponentially.
Retargeting
This is a relatively advanced technique that can be put to great use when building your brand. It helps previous visitors to your site to remember you, and prompts them to return and convert to customers.
Cookies are stored by all website browsers through a short line of code. If they then move on without making a purchase, the cookie will automatically prompt an ad for your products or services to appear to them. This may persuade them to return and complete their purchase.
Smart link building
Backlinks to your brand should be spread as far across the internet as possible on relevant sites and via articles related to your field.
“Guest posting” on other sites and blogs is a great way to guide users to your brand and make you more visible to search engines. You can also ask journalists and high profile bloggers to review your products or feature a quote from you in their article.
It’s important that they feature your URL at some point in their content to ensure the best effect.
Of course, it’s up to you to create your own tailor-made brand awareness campaigns depending on what works best for your business.
You may, for example, choose to use existing customers as a vehicle for further promotion, by encouraging them to recommend you to friends and family via referral programs that will enable them to receive a discount when they next use you.
This will mean you gain more clients – and your existing ones will be back to use their vouchers.
So, to increase brand awareness, the key steps are to regularly produce relevant content, invest in advertising, post regularly on social media, take advantage of retargeting opportunities and undertake smart link building.
The best way to begin is by drawing up a cohesive brand awareness campaign that factors in all of the elements above. Remember to keep your approach and tone of voice consistent throughout.