Here’s How To Take Brand Awareness to Greater Heights Through Digital Marketing

Xerox is perhaps one of the best examples of branding. The actual term is photocopy but Xerox photocopy machines and the process became so eponymously interlinked that people use the term Xerox for the process.

You may not achieve the pinnacle of branding as Xerox does but you surely can boost your brand awareness. Sales will follow. Digital marketing offers several avenues through which you can take brand awareness to greater heights.

#1. Focus on brand awareness

Digital marketing can get you leads you can convert to sales. However, for new businesses and businesses that wish to grow, the focus should be more on creating brand awareness.

Brand awareness defines just how familiar your brand is with target consumers and the concepts they associate it with and whether it resonates with their perceptions. According to Smallbizgenius, 70% of brand managers assign importance to build an audience rather than purely focusing on sales.

If yours is a new business then the priority should be on brand awareness building through digital channels. You build trust. It leads to brand equity which, in turn, helps you gain more value, improve company valuation, expand the business, and have a greater social impact.

Do this and target customers will prefer your brand over others when it is time to buy. 89% of shoppers are found to be brand loyal, especially those brands whose values resonate with their own. Use digital marketing to boost brand awareness.

#2. Content and information

Digital marketing is a great way to market content. However, SEO uses content marketing as a way to get backlinks. You can use the content as a way to build a brand by associating your brand, your products, and your company with a set of values. Craft contents and deploy online as part of your SEO and brand promotion.

According to PEW Research, 28% go online and look for information on companies, products, and services. If you have content that informs, educates, and distinguishes your company then it creates a unique memory. If your site is found on the first page then brand value improves. It takes time so you may think of shortcuts like PPC campaign to gain instant visibility.

#3. PPC, Programmatic

Google’s PPC makes use of words. If branding is the goal then you use appropriate words to create rich imagery of your brand, not an exhortation to buy.

For instance, you could just leverage PPC to show your concern for Covid-19 and its fallouts and how you help. Go a step further for branding and use programmatic. Programmatic can be used to deploy images and even video ads, both of which have a far more powerful effect compared to plain text.

Importantly, your branding programmatic campaign ads display on pages that contain contextual content and that content reinforces the ad. Give your ad an emotive touch, not a purely commercial appeal and it will be remembered as a positive message. Tell a short story through programmatic videos and continue the narrative over to social media video sites.

#4. Video

Transmedia put out a short video showing people how to use masks and exercise caution during the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic. They went further by offering free masks and sanitizers and calling for volunteers. This video on popular video channels earned them brownie points. The short video ended with a brief appeal for people to join and the message carried over to social media, another powerful brand and reputation building tool you must use.

It is not just social messages that tie your image with a desirable quality; video lets you create auras about products and showcase your company to good effect or just tell human stories about founders and interactions. It can help create that vital personalized connection such as when a CEO or sales officer directly talks on video and segues to social media too.

#5. Social media

The majority of smartphone users are on social media and that includes everyone from politicians to celebrities to influencers to the man in the street. If you wish to create brand awareness you could spend millions on print and TV campaigns which would be foolish considering that social media gives superior results for the cost of time and effort you spend.

In fact, there is the added value of persistence and sharing which print and TV lack. So, create good stories about yourself, your people, things you do, and share on Facebook. Write good content and answer people’s queries, resolving problems and that helps boost brand awareness through this digital channel.

In the same way, you use Twitter to tweet about any competitions or special deals. Get an influencer to say something about your company.

In fact, some people focus exclusively on various social media channels and get a rocket boost to their brand popularity. You could, for instance, extend the virtual world into the real world by actually sponsoring or offering to sponsor events. Stand out as a distinct personality represented by your logo and theme colors.

#6. Colors and logo

You should probably start with this first. Bass Brewery created the first logo in 1876 and logos have never looked back. Look at 3M. It is simple yet evocative with the logo going back to 1906 with the current version launched in 1978. Volvo’s logo is in existence since 1927. Bayer’s logo dates back to 1881. When people view the logo it instantly evokes rich visual imagery about the company and its products.

So, start with an excellently designed logo that becomes the fulcrum around which the spokes of your brand awareness campaigns are built. Color is another important consideration because the same color shows in your logo and becomes the common theme around which you weave your branding campaigns.

Do good things. The results will follow. Work digital channels to create brand awareness. Sales will follow and you will get more with less effort. It is human psychology to associate with a brand and prefer it if it has value. Brand awareness will create that priceless value.