Whether you run a small start-up or a medium-size business, brand awareness should be at the core of your marketing strategy.
Firstly, why is brand awareness good?
- It increases sales
- Customers can differentiate your brand from competitors
- Business expansion becomes easier
As any marketing director will tell you, though, increasing brand awareness can be quite difficult – especially during the current economic times. So, if you want to boost your brand awareness without spending crazy amounts of money, here are 5 ways you can do exactly that:
1. Use Free Social Media Platforms for Marketing
Nowadays, the vast majority of businesses are boosting their brand awareness for free-to-use social media platforms. These include:
- Twitter (check Twitter, almost every major brand – from Apple to Coca-Cola – is active on there!)
- TikTok
Across these platforms, you have the freedom to implement all different kinds of strategies; from posting fun photos and videos to more complex things like product tips and guides.
In particular, Pinterest has become one of the most used social media tools by businesses. This is because Pinterest is an image-based social media platform that’s great for driving brand awareness and website traffic, which is why thousands of businesses use it to post product images, memes, and more.
For example, Nike’s Pinterest page primarily focuses on posting images and videos of their products. Also, they will use it to post materials from any current marketing campaigns they have.
If your business has yet to Pinterest, now’s the time to do it. Here’s a useful Pinterest analytics guide for marketers – it will help you to get started! Once you get the hang of it, you’ll then be able to use Pinterest to drive your brand forward.
Read Also: Memes In Marketing: What Is Allowed And What Is Forbidden
2. Run Giveaways and Competitions
Giveaways and competitions are a guaranteed way to boost brand awareness. This is because the modern-day customer loves them – after all, they have nothing to lose but a lot to gain.
Usually, the best place to conduct giveaways and competitions is a social media platform such as Twitter or Facebook. On here, you can post that you’re holding a giveaway and that people can enter by clicking the link and registering their details. From there, you can collect potentially thousands of customer email addresses (or phone numbers) which can then be used for future marketing purposes – it’s a win-win!
Pro tip: make sure your giveaways and competitions come with genuine value. Don’t giveaway your lowest priced product. Instead, choose a product (or multiple products) that are high in value. This way, you’ll receive greater engagement from customers and non-customers.
3. Start an SEO Campaign
SEO is a huge part of today’s digital marketing.
Essentially, SEO (which stands for Search Engine Optimization) is a process used to drive more visitors to your website and social media pages, which in-turn helps to boost brand awareness.
You can do this by firstly working on your website. Make it mobile-friendly and regularly post articles and blogs that include industry key words. Google likes this and will boost your website up the search ranking results providing the content is good quality. It’s also important to post backlinks to other sites to gain even greater exposure.
Nowadays, most businesses are outsourcing their SEO to save time and money.
4. Launch Ads on Google
Google is a great place to pay for ads, as you automatically become exposed to a larger audience. Sure, Google ads can be expensive to run for smaller businesses, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Google allows first-time ad users to do so at a lower cost. This way, they can get a genuine feel for whether it’s a good strategy for them or not (most of the time, it is).
If you have a reasonable marketing budget to work with, it’s recommended that you try running a few ads on Google – even if it’s just for a couple of weeks or months. Through Google analytics, you’ll be able to gain insight into the exposure your ads have given you, as well as how many people have clicked and engaged with them.
5. Attend Networking Events
Finally, if you want to further boost your brand awareness, make sure to attend networking events in your local area and state. Here, you’ll be able to network with fellow company owners and executives, which can then lead to collaborative efforts further down the line. For example, you might begin networking with another local business owner who can provide you access to larger customer bases than you currently have access to!
