If you’re a business owner, you know how important it is for you to have a solid, reliable brand image. This is integral for your business to survive in this competitive climate. If your audience can’t recognize your brand, you’ll have a difficult time staying afloat.
So how do you make sure your target market is aware of your brand?
Via a comprehensive marketing plan!
An effective promotional strategy is one that incorporates both online and offline measures to help your brand gain more visibility in the eyes of your target audience. If you’re unsure about how to get started, here are 5 surefire ways to boost brand awareness and become a reliable business.
Tell a story through your brand
If you want your customers to be able to relate to the brand you’ve built, you need to create a narrative for them to relate to. Storytelling is a very powerful way to market your image because it allows your audience to see you as more approachable and human.
If you have a compelling story behind how you created your brand, share it with your audience. Make sure your story is simple enough to be understood by your audience, yet persuasive enough to pull in customers. To figure out how to tell a compelling story, ask yourself the following questions:
- Why does your brand exist?
- What problem did you set out to solve?
- What solution did you come up with?
- How does your solution resonate with your customers?
Famous skincare brand Burt’s Bees have been known to keep their story simple and effective throughout the years. Their narrative focuses on following the philosophies and lifestyle influence of the founder, Burt, and his simple way of living. They tell Burt’s story through a series of entertaining videos to help their audience get to know the message behind the brand.
Similarly, you can create your own “our story” page on your website and share the message and philosophies that have led to the creation of your brand.
Take advantage of influencer marketing
If there’s one way to get your brand name out there, it’s through influencers. As social media marketing becomes an integral part of any marketing strategy, online influencers continue to gain more traction. Approaching these influencers is a great way to reach out to wider audiences.
Reach out to micro influencers who are relevant to your brand positioning. This will be more helpful than going to larger, more established influencers as it will allow you wider access to a more diverse range of followers at a lesser cost. Make sure the influencers you’re reaching out to have steady reputations and are likely to show interest in what you have to offer.
Offer them free or discounted products and services, or even a monetary reward in exchange for reviews and recommendations on their social media.
Start a referral program
For a lot of people, friends and family are their top sources of brand awareness. People are more likely to recognize and trust a brand if their loved one has referred it to them. So why not use this referral to your advantage?
Start a referral program for your current customers. Depending on the kind of product or service you’re offering, you can incentivize customers to bring in family and friends by offering a 15% refer-a-friend discount on their next purchase or appointment.
Dropbox grew their customer base significantly by offering more storage space to customers who referred a friend, and Paypal offered actual money to incentivize customers to bring in more people.
Leverage local support through vibrant visual content
To create awareness for your brand, you have to engage those that are in closest proximity to your business. Those who live in the same area or community as you deserve to be engaged closely.
Look for places in your community that have high foot traffic and have a set of eye-catching brand posters ready to be put up. Designing a professional poster might look challenging, but it’s a lot easier than it seems. With online design tools like PosterMyWal’s online poster maker, you can get free access to a wide range of templates to help you show off your brand.
Place your brand logo at the top of your poster to increase recognition. Add in your signature brand colors. Include information about any promotions or deals you’re currently offering and want customers to know about. You can also add in a QR Code to the corner of your poster that links customers to your website.
Remarket to those who visit your website
Remarketing is the practice of targeting those customers who have visited your website in the past. If you want to be more widely recognized, remarketing is a great tactic to use.
Make use of personalized Google ads to appear on the timelines of customers who visited your page and leave before making a purchase. For instance, if your customer visited the top sales page on your website, you can send some 20% off promotional ads their way to remind them of the item sitting in their shopping cart.
The great thing about remarketing is that even if the customer doesn’t end up buying from you, you’re still benefiting. This is because your ads are appearing on the social media feeds of your potential customers on a regular basis. They might not click on every ad to make a purchase, but rest assured, they will remember your brand name.
Final thoughts:
In the competitive market of today, it is integral to continue working on your brand image. Making sure your target audience remembers who you are and what you offer is vital to ensuring your survival as a business.
Use these tips and tricks to increase your brand visibility and form a reliable, trustworthy image in the eyes of your customers.