5 Guaranteed Ways to Improve Brand Awareness of Business

Having a unique and memorable brand helps you build awareness of your business and create a long-term position in the marketplace. Brand awareness is a measure of how well your brand is known within its target markets. Your brand is a welcome mat or a locked door to potential customers, and by building up your brand name in the online and offline arena you will potentially reach more clients and customers. There are many ways to increase your own brand awareness:

• Exhibit – Exhibiting can be expensive but it is also a great way to get in front of hundreds of people attending a conference or trade event. With expense in mind it is important to choose where you are exhibiting carefully so that you can reach your target audience.
• Experiential stunt – The aim of this is to create a bond between the consumer and the brand by showcasing the brand in a fun, memorable experience and if they are truly successful increase brand awareness. This can be expensive, with Red Bull providing some great examples in the past through its Formula 1 teams, BMX events most notable would be its Space Jump in October 2012.
• Social Media – Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn provide companies with a great platform to build their brand awareness with their target audience online. However finding the time to create engaging content for these channels can be time consuming and at a cost. One company which has certainly used its social channels to their advantage to engage with their consumer is ‘AO’ check there Facebook page here for some examples.
• Promotional Merchandise – Small corporate gifts are a great way to thank customers for their business and reinforce your brand at the same time. But don’t scrimp too much, cheap and cheerful merchandise could create a false impression of your brand. Something unusual or personalised will delight the recipient and may lead to them posting about the gift on social media, earning your brand extra glory. One recent example of this was in the construction industry, where Hill Engineering in Northern Ireland commissioned a bespoke USB of its own product a Tefra Quick Coupler. This unique shaped USB pen resonated well with their target audience creating brand awareness and also gave them further opportunity to engage online with suppliers and contractors within the construction industry.
• Sponsorship – Sponsoring an event is another way to reach your target audience and increase brand awareness. However the event, company or product that you are sponsoring, must be aligned with your own companies values and beliefs. There have been some spectacular fails of this in the past including: Lance Armstrong and Nike and most recently Adidas ending all association with World Athletics.

As you can see there are many ways to build brand awareness to suit all budgets. However it is important to note that for it to be successful you must have your target audience in mind and also what part of your business or product are you looking to increase awareness of.