Brand awareness is one of those ideas that you know you need to comprehend but may find challenging to define. Don’t worry, it’s not just you. It seems easy on the surface. A brand’s awareness among consumers is its recognition.

However, how would anyone gauge that? You might be asking what is the precise definition of brand awareness that applies to your company? Here, we go over everything one would need to know about developing a successful brand recognition campaign.

Brand recognition measures how well customers can recognise your brand without hearing the brand name based on visual and aural cues like your logo, colours, music, sounds, packaging, etc. Consider how IKEA is easily recognised by its blue and yellow hues, or how Mcdonald’s simply requires a M in its road signs for people to know whose brand it represents.

Why is it important?

When consumers think about the kind of goods or services you sell, your brand comes to mind first thanks to strong brand awareness and brand recognition. It is simpler to communicate successfully through social material, especially in photographs or short-form video, when people are familiar with your brand or catchphrase.

Building brand loyalty requires first creating brand awareness. Customers can’t adore your brand before they are aware of it and can recognise it, after all.

Brand loyalty may make your company’s name, goods, or services seem synonymous or like an identity. Consider the fact that “coke” is occasionally used in place of “soda” or how some individuals refer to themselves as “Apple people.” These are only two illustrations of how brand awareness can permeate people’s routines, practises, and vocabularies.

9 effective ways to increase brand awareness

1. Building a recognizable brand

Brand building is a crucial first step for brand awareness. This means that you would need to have a clear idea of what your brand is and what it represents. For example, the look of your brand and what it stands for.

Some essential elements of a distinctive brand are as follows:

• Brand voice

What tone do you employ? Prefer a casual or formal approach? Humorous or serious? Playful or professional?

The tone you employ doesn’t have to be the same everywhere. Your brand’s tone on social media may be more lighthearted and enjoyable than the tone you employ in print advertisements for example. Even slightly changing your voice from Facebook to TikTok is possible.

However, your brand’s message to customers and about your product should ultimately be consistent across all platforms. Follow your style guide and select a few reliable key phrases.

• Brand Aesthetic

Building a brand and increasing brand recognition depend on consistency. That applies to both your appearance and your spoken statements. What hues do you use for your brand? Fonts? What does your overall appearance on visual apps like Instagram and TikTok look like? Take a look at these Old Navy and Banana Republic Instagram pictures as an illustration. The same firm owns both the brands, yet they each have a distinct target market and social aesthetic.

• Brand Values

We’ve discussed defining your voice and appearance. However, brand values outline your identity as a company. The most crucial element in creating a recognisable brand is having a defined set of brand values.

Don’t get too caught up in what you believe values should be. This isn’t only about giving to charities or making gifts on behalf of businesses (although those can certainly be aspects of how you live your brand values). This is more about establishing your brand’s values and how you live them out in interactions with everyone, from clients to staff. Verify that your brand’s values correspond to those of your intended audience. According to a trusted survey, 58% of consumers buy or advocate for brands based on their beliefs and values, while 60% of employees use beliefs and values to choose their employer. This is not about lip service. Your actions are as least as significant as your words.

• Logo & Taglines

You might argue that these are a component of your brand’s look and voice, but they are significant enough to stand out on their own. These are the symbols of your brand that are easily recognised.

You don’t need anybody to inform you that you’re looking at a Nike product or advertisement if you read “Just Do It” or see the recognisable swoosh. What does KFC provide you? Finger Licking Good Food. Consider these components of your brand carefully since they will serve as its monetary unit.

2. Having a brand story

Although it ties to some of the previously discussed topics, this goes a bit farther than your brand values and voice. The history of your brand and how it came to be what it is is told in your brand story.

A brand narrative for an entrepreneur can be that they identified a problem in their day job and created a solution to address it. Your brand narrative for a bigger company could include your goal statement and your history.

Each brand has a narrative. But telling that story is what matters most for brand recognition. Use narrative to highlight your brand’s history through, for instance, customer encounters or by highlighting significant turning points in your expansion.

3. Value added beyond products offered

Adding value beyond your product is a critical strategy for increasing brand recognition over the long run. Consider how you can enlighten, educate, or amuse.

Do you or your group possess specialist knowledge? Don’t keep it between you two! Use a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, or newsletter to spread your information.

Direct sales should not be the focus here. Instead, this is a strategy that fosters relationships and raises brand recognition and gives audiences additional chances to learn about your business.

4. Shareable contents

This ties in a little bit with the previous two principles, but in this case we’re concentrating on producing material that’s simple to share. While it’s not always feasible to forecast what material will become viral, you may take actions to increase the discoverability and shareability of your content. Following standard practises for social media optimization, such as publishing often and at the appropriate times, should come first.

Create stuff that your fans will want to share as well, though. This fits with the notion of adding value to your content rather than always attempting to close deals. Consider include a call to action that urges you to tag a friend or share your resources. Additionally, make it simple to share your material by including social sharing icons on your website and blog, which can contribute to social proof.

5. Community service

Not all brand development takes place online. Through making a tangible contribution to your community, such as by sponsoring events, providing corporate gifts, or supporting staff involvement in charitable endeavours, you may build brand recognition.

This may be as significant as the sponsorship of a significant occasion, such as KLCC’s yearly fireworks display or it can be as easy as donating something to a local fundraiser’s silent auction.

6. Offer freebies

Everyone loves a freebie. Offering something for free to the public is an excellent way to get  potential customers to try your product and jump aboard the loyal customers’ ship. Additionally, it helps raise awareness of your brand online. Whether it’s a free sample, a free trial or a “freemium” business model, a free taste of what you offer helps to get people have a feel or what you are offering and at the same time spreads awareness of your brand.

For a brief period of time, typically 7, 14, or 30 days, you provide the entire product or service—or a version of it—for free. A freemium business model allows you to provide an unrestricted basic version of your product with the choice to upgrade to a premium plan for more comprehensive features.

7. Social media contests

The main idea of the aforementioned point is to increase brand recognition by making it simple for customers to test your good or service. This point also deals with free things, but it focuses on utilising a giveaway to promote your company on social media. Social competitions using the “tag-a-friend” entry format are a particularly effective approach to attract new followers to your social media profiles and therefore increase brand recognition. Your prospective new audience will grow even more if you work together with another brand or content developer. For example, Vico Malaysia using such a giveaway format in their social media.

8. Making the best of social algorithms

Although Instagram may have temporarily abandoned modifications to its suggested content algorithm, it appears that recommended content will continue to exist on Meta platforms. This was stressed by Mark Zuckerberg on the most recent earnings call:

Currently, our AI recommends material from people, groups, or accounts that you don’t follow for roughly 15% of items in a person’s Facebook feed and slightly more than that percentage for their Instagram feed. By the end of the next year, we anticipate a more than doubling of these figures. Of course, TikTok is driven by content that has been approved on the FYP.

As people who don’t already follow you see your content on recommended content, your chances of being discovered on social media sites rise. That additional exposure is a helpful method to raise brand recognition.

However, as Instagram discovered when it overly relied on suggested content, individuals only like what they enjoy. In essence, getting your material to appear in consumers’ feeds is just one aspect of the process. You must provide content that people want to view if you want to increase true brand recognition.

9. Awareness ads

According to Meta, the goal of brand recognition for advertisements on their platforms is as follows – “Brand awareness is a goal for advertisers that want to reach consumers who are more likely to remember their advertising.

The estimated ad recall lift (people) statistic, which is provided by the brand awareness goal, displays how many individuals we believe would remember your advertisement if questioned within two days. A bit more succinctly, LinkedIn says: “Increase brand awareness for your company by choosing the Brand Awareness aim for your ad campaigns.”

The bottom line

If you have highly perceived brand value, you are more likely to gain clients’ trust or attention and command higher market pricing for your goods or services. You would also have greater social effect, influence, and reach as a result of target audience familiarity and approval.

So, what are you waiting for? Apply these 9 steps today to elevate your business to new heights!