4 Methods for a Brand to Raise Its Awareness

Influencer Marketing Hub published a survey in 2021, and one of the questions in this survey asked participants what they wanted to achieve with social media marketing—arguably the biggest and most popular online advertisement method.

9 out of 10 respondents revealed that raising brand awareness is one of their biggest goals. And why would it not be?

Brand awareness can be defined as a means to have consumers remember a business. In other words, the more brands focus on raising awareness, the more recognition they get through logos, slogans, and products.

The goal of brand awareness is to make consumers comfortable with your name. They are more likely to purchase from a brand they recognize rather than one they have not heard of before. 

Word of mouth is also a powerful tool that comes from brand awareness. If someone asks a friend or colleague for a recommendation, the answer is likely to be a brand that the person who gets asked the question is comfortable with.

Having said all that, what should brands do if they want to raise awareness? There are 4 notable methods that will be covered in this article. 

Custom Merchandise

Let’s start with custom merchandise. If you look around and see people wearing polo shirts or regular t-shirts with various brand logos and slogans, you pay attention to them. Particularly if the design is well-made.

Of course, custom merchandise does not have to be so on the nose. Something like personalized Apple watch bands are not noticeable immediately, but they can also work as a source for people to express themselves or support a specific cause, which also works as a promotion.

Some brands like to get involved in local community events and reach local audiences. For instance, whenever there is a charity event, a business has its employees wearing branded t-shirts or giving away merchandise for free. 

If you have ever participated in political rallies, you should be familiar with the concept. Politicians give notebooks, pens, pocket calendars, and other knick-knacks to promote themselves. The concept is similar to custom merchandise, and it is known to work in raising brand awareness.

Guest Posts

Guest posts are another example of how brands can raise brand awareness. If you publish an article on an already established blog, regular readers will get to know your brand. 

Of course, a lot comes down to the article’s quality. Some brands try to take a different approach and publish general articles with a backlink or even do a link insertion to an already published article. Link building has its value, but it is not that effective awareness-wise.

No, you want to collaborate with a blog and come up with an article idea that would cover your brand as much as it can, though be wary about being too obvious on the promotion. An obviously paid guest post to promote a brand might not go well with the readers, and the whole thing will backfire.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization often revolves around a long-term investment strategy. Brands are not afraid to dedicate the majority of their budget to SEO because they realize how valuable ranking on top Google and other search engine pages is.

High rankings build authority, and in a way, a brand’s authority is interchangeable with raising awareness.

If someone enters a keyword in Google and sees the results, the odds are that they will not bother going to a second or even third page. It is all about the first page. The more people see a brand’s name at the top of a search engine, the more familiar they become with that brand.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing seems like a tailor-made method to raise brand awareness. These days, an average person is fed up with big corporations and has given up on them. Instead, they look to connect with personalities, such as social media influencers, YouTubers, and Twitch TV streamers.

An A-tier influencer promoting a brand can make thousands of dollars just for a single post. And the prices go higher when you go higher up the ladder and wish to collaborate with top celebrities.

If a brand does not have the budget to cover the top of the echelon, that should not be a problem. Influencer marketing is beneficial so long as you collaborate with the right people. In other words, you want to work with influencers who have the right audience.
Do not disregard micro-influencers either. Just because an influencer does not have hundreds of thousands of followers, it does not mean that they are worthless. If anything, working with multiple micro-influencers can be more beneficial than working with one big celebrity because the former has a great engagement rate.