Brand awareness is an essential part of growing any business. From small local operations to digital brands and services, getting the word out about your brand requires planning and skill to provide maximum benefit. These five brand awareness boosts offer benefits to new businesses without requiring significant time or monetary investments.
1. Build a Web Presence
With the rise in popularity of mobile web browsing, social media and other online platforms, building a web presence for your business is a crucial part of brand awareness. The best platforms will vary depending on your industry or market.
Possible web presence options include:
- Social Media
- Brand Website
- Blogs
- Newsletters
- Video Marketing
- Forums and Discussion Groups
Each of these platforms offers distinct benefits and best practices. Be sure to have a consistent voice and offer real value to your audience through your web presence for optimal brand awareness growth. If you are unsure where to start, StartupNation offers an in-depth guide on building a web presence from start to finish.
2. Create a Brand Image
From uniforms and dress code for physical locations to cohesive color schemes and high-quality logos on digital sites, creating a unique and solid image for your brand will help to improve the professionalism of your business and help visitors, clients and customers remember your business. This results in improved word-of-mouth referrals, conversions and overall brand awareness growth. If graphic design is not in your skill set, this is one area where the added expense of outsourcing often offers outstanding return on investment.The Financial Brand recently outlined numerous tips for developing a strong brand image.
3. Find Interviews in Your Market
Many digital and traditional print publications are always on the hunt for a good interview. Checking with independent online journals and local publications is typically a good starting point for new businesses. This not only helps to increase brand awareness and exposure, but also helps to solidify your business as an authority in your industry. While it might take some time to find the ideal source for your interview, the well-rounded list of benefits makes it worth the time and effort.
4. Attend and Sponsor Community and Industry Events
From local community days to national trade shows and events, these are exceptional opportunities to get the word out about your business or brand. Most events offer preferred placement and advertising for sponsors and contributors as well. This makes it simple to place your brand in front of a pre-targeted audience that is ready to engage, interact and utilize your products or services. For more information, consider this article by Marketing Profs on trade show branding best practices.
5. Network and Engage within Your Industry
From news sites and blogs to local business groups, it is likely that you already keep up to date on the latest news and events. By taking the extra time to attend events, leave comments on blog posts and contribute to discussions both online and offline, you are creating connections and building authority. While this is often most effective for B2B brands, it holds benefits for any type of brand or business. Be sure to contribute regularly and keep your brand visible to participants for the best impact on brand awareness.
Brand awareness is a key component to growing a brand or business. As a new business, budgets are often extremely restricting. This might make choosing the best options for growing your business difficult. With a little time and effort, these five brand awareness boosters offer affordable, easy to implement options for new businesses in any industry.
About the Author: Willie Pena is a freelance writer, video producer, visual artist, and music producer. He prefers the Oxford comma. In addition to writing for firms such as IBM, Colgate, Transunion, Webroot, Icon Identity Solutions and a multitude of private clients and websites, he also shoots, directs, and edits the hit celebrity web series “Teens Wanna Know”. Catch his rare blog posts on williepena.com, or connect with him on LinkedIn.
Photo credit: Kimba Howard
