In a highly competitive market, brand awareness is becoming a key success factor. The more often consumers encounter a brand, the higher the likelihood that they will choose it among many alternatives. Increasing awareness helps to build trust, strengthen reputation, and ensure stable growth. There are successful awareness campaign examples that clearly prove how important it is to work on awareness in order to take a strong place in the minds of the audience. In this article, we will look at why brand awareness is of strategic importance and what benefits it brings to business.
What Is Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness is the level of awareness of the target audience about the brand, and the ability of potential buyers to remember and recognize the brand in different situations.
Brand awareness is often the first and most important step on the customer’s path to purchase. If the consumer does not know about the brand, he is less likely to buy its product. It happens that customers make purchases without first getting to know the company. For example, this is how impulse purchases work. However, industries where brand awareness means little are rather in the minority.
When a company increases brand awareness, it reduces its dependence on the flow of customers who find a product or service on their own. The brand begins to find its customers itself.
Types of Brand Recognition
Brand recognition does not always have a positive effect on sales. In some cases, it may indicate poorly thought-out or incorrect company positioning. To better understand how this is possible, let’s look at each type of recognition:
Top of mind
When a product category is mentioned, customers immediately recall a specific company. This type of recognition indicates the brand’s leading position on the market in the minds of buyers. If this indicator is 50% or more, customers associate the company with the product category. An example of a question on spontaneous recognition: “What brands of refrigerators do you know?” The buyer can name Samsung, Gorenje, or Bosch.
Spontaneous recognition
When a product category is mentioned, the target audience names the brand along with other market representatives. There is no need to demonstrate the company’s properties, logo, or other details to potential buyers. Spontaneous recognition indicates that the brand is one of the leaders in the minds of consumers.
Brand recognition
Customers remember a brand only if they hear it mentioned, see the product packaging, logo, or the product itself. This type of recognition is observed in new brands and inexpensive consumer goods. When the price increases or the product range changes, customers may abandon the company’s products in favor of more recognizable brands.
A high ability of the target audience to remember the company and its attributes indicates good brand positioning and the effectiveness of the marketing strategy. If recognition is low, it should be increased.
How to Increase Brand Awareness?
Companies increase brand awareness to strengthen their position in the market and their connection with consumers. To increase awareness, it is most effective to use several tools and channels simultaneously. This will increase the reach of the target audience and help strengthen the brand image in the minds of consumers. Here are the methods that can be used to achieve the desired goals:
- Social media marketing. This involves creating advertisements, holding contests and giveaways, and creating viral content. A well-thought-out SMM strategy helps to launch word of mouth, increase brand awareness and the number of subscribers, as well as convert leads and increase sales.
- Sales promotion. This method involves holding promotions at points of sale, sampling, providing discounts, holding contests, etc.
- ATL advertising. This involves increasing awareness through the media, radio, television, outdoor advertising, and other classic methods of influencing the target audience.
- Influencer marketing. This involves interacting with influencers and industry leaders. Companies attract bloggers, actors, industry experts, and other people whose opinions matter to your target audience.
- Loyalty programs. Incentives in the form of bonuses, discounts, and promotions help to increase brand awareness. With their help, companies build long-term relationships with consumers and cultivate brand advocates.
- Direct marketing. This method of increasing brand awareness involves transmitting information about the company’s products and services directly to the consumer. Direct marketing tools include email, SMS, web push, messenger marketing, and SMM.
- Logo and packaging design, a memorable brand legend, quality of service, and other factors that influence the formation of the right image in the minds of consumers play a huge role in achieving the desired level of recognition.
Why Is It Important to Increase Brand Awareness?
If a consumer doesn’t know about a company, they are unlikely to buy from it. That’s why brand awareness is often considered the foundation of brand equity. Here are some benefits that a company gets by working on brand awareness:
- It’s a way to unite a team. Top managers often track brand awareness. The indicator is useful for monitoring the progress of a business. As a rule, if awareness is growing, then the business is improving.
- Brand awareness is an indicator of improvements in a business. If you know the percentage of people who know about your brand and your market share, you can compare these two indicators.
You need to set a goal: to turn awareness into a willingness to buy from you. Then more people will buy your brand’s products, and the company’s market share will increase. If awareness is growing, then the brand will not be forgotten. Brand awareness is not something one-time. Consumers need changes, so you need to constantly work on brand recognition, and communicate information about the company to the right people at the right time. This will help keep the brand relevant. Prove your importance to customers, and you will increase loyalty to yourself.
Conclusion
Raising brand awareness is not just a trendy marketing trend, but a strategically important step towards business growth and sustainability. A recognizable brand stands out from the competition, inspires trust in customers, and promotes loyalty. The use of various awareness campaign strategies demonstrates that even simple but consistent actions can bring impressive results. If you need support in launching brand awareness campaigns, we recommend contacting TeqBlaze.