Brand awareness: what it is and how to generate it

[fatimahislam]

What is brand awareness or brand recognition?
It represents how familiar your brand is to your target audience. Brands with high recognition are often referred to as “trending” or “popular .” Brand awareness is essential in marketing campaigns for your company and products, especially in the initial stage of the business.

It is an essential component in the world of marketing that refers to the extent to which a brand is recognized and remembered by the target audience. It is the connection that a brand establishes with consumers, and goes beyond simply knowing the name of the company . This involves consumers associating the brand with certain values, experiences or products.

Brand awareness is built through a variety of marketing strategies, from advertising campaigns to social media presence, sponsorships and public relations. Consistency in brand presentation and the delivery of clear and coherent messages are key to building a strong image in the consumer's mind. Measuring brand awareness involves assessing the audience's familiarity with the brand, their ability to remember it and the positive association they may have.

It is essential to a brand's success as it creates a strong mexico whatsapp lead foundation for consumer relationships and contributes significantly to brand loyalty and preference. It is a key element in differentiation and positioning in today's competitive market.

This may seem like a vague concept to you – and to be honest, maybe it is – and it can certainly make marketers and business owners who like to gauge success by comparing neat, clean numbers a little uncomfortable. However, just because it’s an aspect that can’t be perfectly measured doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Brand awareness is really important for successful businesses, especially for achieving your marketing goals.

What is brand recall?
Brand recall is the stage in which consumers remember you. In other words, it is the memory that customers have of a brand (based on their positive or negative experiences) to genuinely identify it.

The highest level of brand awareness is reached when a consumer knows the name, category and even recognizes the logo of a company at the slightest sign of it. For example, if you ask a person to name a television brand and they immediately say Sony, that indicates successful recall, which gives them great advantages over the competition in their purchasing choice.

Why brand awareness is important
1. Build trust
In a world where people rely on research and other people’s opinions as an effective method of choosing a brand, trust is everything. Once a consumer creates a connection with your brand, they are more likely to make subsequent purchases without much thought . This builds a bridge between credibility and loyalty.

Brand recognition establishes trust. When you create a classic image for your brand, consumers can more easily believe in you. Brand awareness efforts give your brand a personality and an opportunity to receive feedback and tell a story that creates an authentic connection. This is about the ways humans build relationships of trust with each other, which similarly occurs between people and brands.

2. Create a connection
When you get an urgent question and you don't know the answer, you Google it. When you need some photocopies, you probably use a Xerox, and when you go on a picnic, you don't forget to bring Coca-Cola.

Surely these situations are familiar to you. And, if you look closely, the brand represents the object: “Google” is the “browser”; “Xerox” is the “photocopier” and “Coca-Cola” is the drink par excellence of that flavor. In fact, it is common for us to mention the name of the brand, even if we are not using it, because we already associate it with a certain product.

This is what brand recognition does: it associates actions and products with specific brands , unconsciously motivating people to use their name, rather than the common words that designate them. Without you realizing it, a picnic or an office task can lead you to perform an act of involuntary marketing.

3. Build value
Brand equity describes consumer experiences and overall perceptions of the brand. Positive experiences and perceptions create authentic value, but negative experiences and perceptions create adverse value.

Here are some aspects that I believe differentiate a positive brand value:

A higher perceived value by the target audience.
Highest market price.
Opportunity to expand the business by offering an additional product or service.
Greater social impact due to brand name value .
How can you build brand equity? Increase brand awareness and consistently promote the positive experiences customers have had with your brand. In other words, recognition is the foundation for building brand equity.

Once the consumer knows the brand, he will recognize it immediately and without help: he will think of it when making purchases, he will prefer it over other brands that offer the same product and he will begin to be loyal ; not only with his purchases, but also by recommending it to family and friends.

That’s the main reason why brand awareness really matters! Because it allows you to build trust with your customers, creates positive associations, and builds unbreakable brand equity that allows it to become the name of a product, as well as a basic, familiar word for your consumers.

The importance of brand awareness in the B2B sector
In B2B (business-to-business) marketing, brand awareness is essential to make yourself known. It is a more specialized type of segmentation that provides services to organizations and not directly to consumers. Therefore, B2B brand awareness is more focused on reaching the target audience, in this case the decision-makers in a company.

If your brand's products are aimed at other businesses, it's best to deploy your brand strategy from LinkedIn, as it's the social network that 97% of B2B marketing leaders use to spread a brand's content. So now you have a clue on how to get off to a good start.

How to boost brand awareness
1. Make your brand a person, not a company
Brand awareness among your consumers and the general public doesn't happen overnight. Nor does it happen right after a campaign or an advertisement. Brand recognition that really has an impact is the result of several efforts that go beyond attracting customers who will pay for your product or service. Seeking to generate brand awareness by creating some product ads on Facebook will cause the consumer to focus only on the product and not on the brand.

When you make a new friend, what do you want to know about them? Why did you choose them as a friend? You're probably interested in knowing their hobbies, passions, and dislikes. Maybe you like the way they talk, their topics of conversation, or the kinds of things that excite them.

These are some of the characteristics that your brand must define in order to promote itself properly. With this, you will generate an impact on your audience and define the image of your brand as something more than just a company that sells a product or service. In what other ways can you define your brand? What words would you use to introduce your brand to a new friend? They have worked for me in my day-to-day life; I believe, from my experience as an expert in the field, that they can be useful for you!

2. Socialize with your audience
Whether we're introverted or extroverted, shy or talkative, all humans benefit from social contact and spending time with others. It's how we stay connected, learn things, and become known to others. The same goes for brands. If you try to connect with people only when you want to make a sale, you won't make your brand anything more than a well-intentioned business (the same goes for people).

To increase brand awareness, you need to make your brand social. Post things on social media that aren't necessarily related to your product or service. Interact with your audience by asking questions, commenting on posts, or sharing content you like. Give your social media accounts a focus that makes your brand look like a person who wants to make friends, not a business looking to make money.

Around 52% of a brand's reputation comes from online interaction . Being social will make your brand more identifiable and recognized than if you only generate content to promote your services or products.

3. Tell a story
Storytelling is an incredibly powerful marketing technique, whether you're promoting products or a brand. This is because it offers something real to the audience and thus creates a genuine connection.

By creating a narrative around your brand you will humanize it and give it a sense of depth. By showing this narrative in marketing campaigns you will automatically promote your services or products.

What should that story tell? Anything, as long as it's honest. It could be the founder's story, the story of how your brand created its first product, or the account of how your small business managed to succeed in such a large and competitive market. People like to hear other people's stories. Authenticity is impactful and can lead to great exposure that generates true brand awareness.

4. Make your content easy to share
Whatever your industry, products, or marketing strategy , make it easy for your audience to share your content. It can be blog posts, sponsored content, videos, social media posts, or product catalogs. It doesn’t matter what medium or tool you use, as long as it’s easily shareable.

Word of mouth marketing is the most effective way to establish trust and familiarity with your consumers. If someone sees a friend or family member recommending a product or service, they will be aware that the brand exists. They will wonder: is it worth knowing about? Do they have other products they can trust? What are their social media accounts and followers saying?

If you post effectively and consistently, your brand awareness will increase among consumers just by clicking “Share.” The most important thing about brand awareness is the impact.

It’s about engaging with your audience in ways that don’t just involve asking for money, engagement, or loyalty. Imagine you meet someone who wants to be your friend; if they immediately ask you for something, you’re likely to walk away. A superficial friendship not only prevents you from building a bond of real closeness or trust, but it doesn’t create a real impact. The same goes for brand recognition in your niche of consumers.

5. Be a multifaceted brand
This doesn't mean you should become a multi-service brand (although that may be the case for some), but you should put emphasis on making your brand easily accessible to customers in different places and media. Remember that the more present you are in people's minds, the better. Of course, without annoying them, as that would be counterproductive.

That's why it's essential to create channels where customers interact with your brand in a natural, unforced way. For example, if you're a brand that sells cosmetics, it would be ideal for you to be part of makeup-related events, participate in tutorials, conferences, forums, magazines and groups specialized in this industry.

To create a truly powerful brand awareness, it is recommended that customers find you not only through social media or your website; you have to go further to capture the attention of your target audience, get them to identify you and approach you .

6. Offer freemium products
Freemium is a business model that offers a basic version of your service for free. Payment is limited to premium or advanced-level products, for users with more specialized needs. It is a pricing scheme that is widely used as a strategy by software companies, such as HubSpot or Trello .

Offering a freemium version allows your customers to get a taste of what your brand can offer them without making a purchase. It's an opportunity for them to try out your product or service on an ongoing basis (in contrast to the limited-time free trials that other companies choose as a scheme).

It is common to offer a freemium version on the condition that a watermark with the brand name appears on certain elements of the product or content. This makes the scheme a win-win model: the consumer gets a free benefit and the brand gets free advertising every time a customer uses it.

TypeForm is another example of this scheme, offering a freemium version of their survey software, but clients are required to include a thank you page with their logo and a branded message. Depending on the type of business and the product you offer, the freemium scheme can be a great way to increase brand recognition among your audience.