One of the biggest hurdles small business startups face in the early going is brand awareness. Getting your name out there isn’t as easy as making a sale and hoping that customer is happy enough with your product or service that they tell their friends and family.
Now, we’re not saying word of mouth isn’t valuable. People trust and buy based on their friends’ and family’s opinions. However, developing brand awareness doesn’t end there.
7 strategies to increase brand awareness
2oddballs Creative prides itself on helping small businesses accomplish their marketing goals. If you are a new entrepreneur who is struggling to come up with brand awareness strategies here are seven that we would recommend to anyone.
- Brand consistency
- Share your values
- Work with local nonprofits
- Advertise selectively
- Sponsor local clubs/events
- Partner with influencers within your niche
- Share more than your products/services
Brand consistency as a brand awareness strategy
Think about your go-to restaurant. You’ve likely shared your experiences at that restaurant with friends and family, right? What would happen if you went to that spot tomorrow for dinner and the food tasted different and the staff behaved differently? It may make you hesitate, at least for a while, to suggest it to others.
Brand consistency is important for your branding and design, marketing efforts, and customer support.
Stay consistent in the look, tone, and feel of your brand across everything you do and it will build trust, loyalty, and keep those referrals coming.
Share your values
Your potential customers want to know more about you than what you have to sell. They want to support brands that share the same values as them. It makes them feel good about spending their hard-earned money with you. You can share your values with customers in various ways but one other way we like to routinely remind our clients’ audience of their favorite brand’s values is through social media content.
Working with nonprofits as brand awareness
Giving back to the community you operate from is a fantastic brand awareness strategy. Consumers love to support brands that are philanthropic. It’s not enough to voice a popular opinion. You have to mean what you say and act accordingly.
Volunteer, give monetary support, and attend events that back the things that you truly care about. Also, community relations doesn’t have to just be a marketing strategy. It feels good too!
Choose your marketing efforts wisely
Whether it be your advertising efforts or the social media channels you post in, you need to choose the right places to do so.
Pick the ones that best align with your target audience and would deliver the best bang for your buck. Further, within those channels, make sure you select targeting parameters that do so as well. One more tip, there are some digital advertising platforms that allow you to select specific settings that design your campaign to build brand awareness.
Sponsoring local clubs/events for brand awareness
This brand awareness strategy checks a couple boxes! Not only is it an advertisement, it can be a philanthropic venture and it also tells the members of the club, teams, event developers, and the attendees that you are more than just a money grubber. It gets eyes on your brand, builds trust, and is a fantastic networking opportunity.
Partnering with influencers in your niche
There are a number of ways you can build brand awareness by partnering with influencers in your niche. You can give them products to review, allow them to interview you on their podcasts or other content marketing channels, or even do social media takeovers.
Just have a sit-down with the influencer and see if there’s some way you can collaborate!
Share more than your products/services
When you are posting on your social media, giving presentations, or whatever – talk about more than what you have to sell. Share your values, your story, and those of your staff and loved ones. Your audience wants to know who you are, who your staff is, and what makes you tick. People buy from brands they know and trust.
Worried what people will think? Don’t! Being different is a good thing and so is being disruptive.
Final words
Brand awareness is so much more than an advertisement. You likely have an advertising campaign that has stuck in your mind over time and it probably shaped a purchasing decision you made. Take cues from that campaign and build on the parts of it that mean the most to you.
If after reading this you’re still stuck or not confident in your abilities to develop a brand awareness campaign, reach out to 2oddballs! Our first meeting is always no-pressure and a non-decision-making meeting. Fill out a contact form on our website or call us at 417-986-6332.
