Cracking The Code Of Brand Awareness For Start-Ups and Small Businesses
Viraj Damani
Co-Founder at Tru Performance Inc. and Autonomix | Digital Transformation & Solutions | AI & Automation | Cloud, Data & Analytics | Revenue Generation | Strategic Partnerships|
When you start a business, it is expected that you want to soar high and make your business a wild success. However, it is quite childish to expect your brand to go viral overnight and make it big in the market. Building brand awareness needs smart marketing strategies with equally enthusiastic efforts. Not to mention, but a never say die attitude is a must.
If you are ready to take the necessary steps towards building your business, you have reached the right place. Herein you will find the?right advice for expanding your brand awareness ?and reaching your target audience in the right places before your competitors do so.
Brand Awareness – A Brief Explanation
Brand Awareness is the process of creating recognition for your brand among the consumers. Your brand’s identity helps the audiences to know about your product or service in the market. The more familiar it is, the more consumers you have. When people start getting acquainted with your brand’s logo, taglines, and messages, it builds a strong brand image for you and offers you long-term or even lifetime privilege to sustain in the market.
When you have brand recognition, you have the power to grow your business. Not to skip, your brand should be loyal to the customer in terms of the services/products it offers. Providing exceptional service will help boost brand awareness.
Why is Brand Awareness essential for the growth of startups or small businesses?
From the definition of brand awareness, you know how it can help your business to touch the sky.
Increased brand awareness quickly strikes people’s minds when they look for the products or services you are offering them. When your brand is famous among potential customers, they bring positive word of mouth and increase your brand value. Since your brand is already recognized, they are more likely to purchase the same from your company.
Brand awareness is the first ladder that needs to be climbed by marketers. By creating brand awareness, you are already ahead of the competitors, subsequently reaching out to the buyers and expanding your business. Once you are done building the brand image in the market, you can move ahead with further goals and strategies.
Eight ways to establish an effective Brand Awareness Strategy for your startup or small scale business?
Create a budget
While gearing up for a startup or small business, setting a goal and determining a budget is crucial. Decide your process and the price of your brand. Offer the best price to your customer, which will earn you loyalty and customers’ references.
If you are initiating a new business, you need to invest ample time and money. Therefore, ensure your money is not being wasted in the wrong place. Try to create the budget in a certain way that administers your productivity and business growth.
Understand your customers
Know your ideal consumers, communicate with them, know their demands, and go ahead with your business’s further execution according to their needs. Figure out where your target audiences can be found so that you can reach them out and understand their requirements.
Until and unless you know your customer, you cannot promote your brand. Interaction with your customer will give an idea about the demanding factors in the market, and consequently, you will be able to attract their attention. If you are not familiar with your customer, how will you target them? Hence, it is essential to connect with them and win their trust.
Take feedback from your customers.
The best way to measure brand awareness is via feedback. You can keep what the audiences are liking, and you can ditch the aspects which are not selected. No matter what type of business you are running, taking the clients’ feedback is always helpful.
It outstandingly gives you an aggregated idea about the things that are demanded by them. There is no point in promoting those things that are low in demand and degrading your brand value. A case study about your brand can also turn favorable. There are many ways through which you can know your customer’s reaction. Choose that falls under your criteria.?
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Flaunt your brand digitally.
There is no surprise that Digital Marketing is emerging exceptionally. Therefore, make sure your brand has an attractive logo, a catchy tagline(for example, "Just Do It" - Nike and "Open Happiness" - Coca-Cola) and a stunning social media presence. An appealing website can create healthy brand awareness.
Today, people switch to their mobile phones and social media platforms right from the morning. Thus, your presence on social media will be productive. Create blog posts and optimize your website for your users and the search engine and try ranking your brand on the top page of the Google search. Promote your brand as much as you can on social media platforms; this will drive the attention of millions of potential customers.
Keep an eye on your competitor.
To grow higher, you need to know about your competitors. Understand how they are executing their strategies so that you can do better than them. Practice the things your competitors are ignoring. Always try walking extra miles than your rivals.
You can fetch the customer’s attention only if you are offering services better than your competitors. So, analyzing competitors’ working processes will give you the idea to enhance your working procedure. Maintaining healthy competition with your competitors will increase the effectiveness of your marketing strategy.?
Remain classic yet follow the trend
There must be a sterling identity of yours that differentiates you from the others. Being a startup or small company, you should have an extra spark in your brand that shall grab the eyeballs. Your brand should have a charm and grace which they don’t find in others.
A certain kind of uniqueness in your brand can turn fruitful over the night. People crave different qualities and trendy attributes.
Thus, your brand should have that aura that is exclusive and rare to be found in others. There should be your own identity and class, which can raise your value in the market and fulfill the customer’s expectations. Follow the ongoing trends, but at the same time, do not leave your signature.
Marketing and Advertising
Advertising and marketing are must when you discuss brand awareness. There are multiple mediums you can advertise your brand, including marketing campaigns like hoardings, billboards, social networking sites, pamphlets, and so on.
You can also offer discounts and extra facilities to advertise your brand among the customers and leverage referral programs. Marketing and advertising are broad concepts; you can opt for specific strategies wisely that align with your budget.
Collaboration with other brands
Yet another way for excellent brand awareness is a collaboration with other brands. It would help if you always look for partnerships and associations with another brand; this plays like a channel and keeps connecting people. You can collaborate with similar brands that would be an excellent combination for the consumers.
For instance- if you are selling an energy drink, then you can collaborate with sports or competitions going in the city. Doing so will take your brand to an extent making it way popular.
There are many more ways to boost your brand awareness, like endorsement with celebrities or social media influencers , creating business cards, paid promotions, and so on.??
Conclusion
Always remember your brand is your identity in the market. In a virtual world where the customer may not get in touch with your brand in person, it is essential to provide a quality customer experience to your first, second and recurring customers. Make sure to strengthen their trust in you, this is how you can build your brand awareness and grow your business.
Implementing the above-mentioned reliable steps will surely make your position in the market and result in a proven brand for the customers. Also, brand awareness is not done only once. Keep trying new strategies and trends that go perfectly with your customer.