Crucial Role of Brand Awareness in Small Business Success

Be a customer for a day and think of purchasing one product of your choice. Which company would you choose? A renowned one, isn’t it? Why? The reasons are plenty, not just one. Now think why your target customers choose other companies over your business. It is because of brand awareness, a significant concept in catching customers' attention.

Name any big company and you will find how much effort they put in, even after becoming the first choice brand. However, being a small business means starting the brand recognition process from scratch, to help your business transform from startup to scale-up.

So, let’s start with its meaning first.

What is Brand Awareness? Why is It Important For Small Businesses?

Brand awareness is a marketing concept that focuses on the public knowledge of your business group. It includes the popularity and identification of your brand in one glance.

With time, customers can recognize your brand or that’s what every small business owner believes. The importance of brand awareness is stated in this example. Imagine, you are a consumer looking for a luxury SUV. Which company would you choose? The Cadillac brand, but why? Because the company promises quality in every sector, be it product or service. With such market performance, it builds itself as the customer preference. These factors play a crucial role in developing brand awareness for a company.

For a small business, brand awareness is a crucial concept as in the early stages, you must show your company as a reliable source of products in the sector. However, in doing so, the business takes a few steps, affecting brand awareness negatively.

What Factors Influence Small Business Brand Awareness?

Below listed are some of the factors that small businesses must avoid to hamper their brand awareness:

Targeting the Wrong Section of Customers

To understand this notion, think hypothetically for once. Suppose you are manufacturing a smartwatch. The functions of the watch are more centered on the customers related to fitness. Who would you target, or what type of customers would purchase it more? Ones who work out at a gym or a sports academy, right? Then, it is clear whom you will target to make a better sale.

So, the first step for small businesses should be approaching consumers who can easily attach to your product. It builds a customer chain, which improves brand awareness because you deliver products as per requirement. Moreover, the right group of customers remembers the brand against those who do not want the product.

Poor Publicity on Social Media

Let’s continue with the smart watch example. How would you determine the customers who are into the fitness regime? With their ‘Social Media’ interaction. Currently, platforms like Instagram and Facebook have a high traffic of users. A report by Statista revealed that about 2 billion users are active on Instagram and 2.9 billion on Facebook. It does portray them as a resourceful platform for finding the target customers.

So, it shows the right platform for businesses to promote their products and let customers know about them. For small businesses, this step becomes a leap of faith so many of them avoid it in the initial time. That decision affects their brand recognition and they fail to get customers. Even as a sports car manufacturer, Lamborghini has multiple social posts publicizing their new products for customers. This proves the importance of social media in the brand awareness department.?

Ineffective Strategies Impacting Customer Experience

As a customer, would you prefer a company that delivered low-quality products or failed to follow up on your complaints? No, because of your poor experience. This means the strategies should keep the customer experience in focus. That is where small businesses take the wrong turn and develop negative brand awareness.

Ineffective strategies like offering low-quality products, weak support systems, etc., build up negative perceptions. So, these strategies drive customers away from your company; a bad practice for small businesses. It is because many of such companies suffer which affects their sustainable business growth since they fail to deliver a better customer experience.

Inconsistency in Building Business Presentation

Did you observe how Apple presented its new edition of the iPhone? It is a clear example of what a planned and efficient presentation can do for brand awareness. Before launching the latest edition of the iPhone, the company created multiple public and social posts to inform its customers.

With small businesses, they must present the brand and its product for the public to notice. How can you expect to generate brand awareness when the customers are unaware of what you produce? Small businesses present their company to customers improperly, impacting their brand awareness metrics. It directly affects sales as customers are unaware of the brand’s existence.

Lack of Informational Content for Customers

Information is the key to generating awareness. Customers prefer companies with recognized market value and small businesses fail to grow it. The written content helps spread information about your brand, products, work process, and services. Due to less finances, small businesses fail to figure out an effective method to inform customers about their existence.

A report by Saleslion revealed that 85% of customers do online research before buying the product. It includes product research and company verification that builds trust with customers.

With small businesses, the content focuses mostly on information. Yes, you serve the purpose, but information can make the content somewhat boring. Your content needs a storytelling-like feature, which keeps customers engaged. So, blend information with novel-like content that invokes reading interests.

How Small Businesses Can Increase Brand Awareness?

Are you looking for answers on how to increase your brand awareness? Small companies need new ways to improve their brand knowledge. It affects their growth in the early stages, which concerns them.

Here are a few steps or initiatives these businesses can apply to boost their brand recognition:

Involvement in a Controversial Subject

Small businesses want to generate awareness for their brand quickly. Why? That is what helps them catch the eyes of customers. But finding a quick method is tricky. You need an out-of-the-box strategy to accomplish this objective.

There are two ways, either become a controversy or join a disputed topic. McDonald's has banned using plastic straws to be more environmentally friendly. This step did put them in the spotlight. A more beneficial method for small businesses is to be a part of a controversial topic but be on the positive side of it.

Look at how McDonald’s did it. They showed involvement in the environment-saving topic but decided not to promote plastic. Customers find it appealing since the company took the initiative to ensure nature’s safety. It is best to avoid controversy or any heated topic in your initial years, but if it is the only way, keep your approach as described above.

Influencers and Celebrities for Visual Promotion

Being famous can earn you rewards if you utilize the popularity factor to benefit your business. Small businesses cannot record higher sales in their initial stages being less brand recognized, and a way to solve that is to bring a known face.

Remember how Nike endorsed a deal with Cristiano Ronaldo? This deal rocketed in the media as the followers of it caught the eye. A report by Hookit revealed that only with his social media presence, Ronaldo earned Nike around $474 million. Businesses can use various tools like engagement rate or public followers, but most importantly, the relation to your target audience. A car manufacturer hiring Lewis Hamilton as brand face makes logical sense.?

However, if the brand focuses on someone who does not relate to driving any vehicle, the target audience develops a perception of the product’s competency. This is one of the effective customer retention strategies businesses should consider the target audience. For instance, Ford hired Dwayne Johnson as a brand ambassador in the USA due to his connection and popularity as an actor.

Include a Catchy and Memorable Brand Tagline

A tagline is a combination of words that persuades customers to take action. It is mostly related to purchasing the product or availing of the services. For instance, Mastercard, whose slogan tells customers they can buy everything with Mastercard except for a few things that money cannot afford.

Isn’t it quite innovative in terms of creating a tagline? It promotes the company with a pinch of a life lesson. Every small business hopes to become a fixed place for customers, but must have that edge factor. Taglines are a way to ignite that, it is not just a sentence but a verbal picture of what your brand can deliver. For example, BMW has a tagline - The Ultimate Driving Machine. Now you get it??

Adopt Smart Work in Advertising Products

Yes, advertising is important in achieving success but it does not mean following the same old tactics. Small businesses understand the role of advertising but solely focus on this aspect. It is best to merge a pinch of smart work in your advertising role to see how the dice roll out.

To acquire attention from customers, small businesses invest heavily in promoting their brand everywhere. This increased their expenses but they cannot match the expected result of the return on this investment. Hence, the smart work option becomes feasible instead of a blunt advertisement. The business should investigate the popular handles customers interact with.

For instance, start by filtering out newspaper heads that are more popular among your targeted consumers. Apply the same process for social media handles to establish a strategic approach in placing your ads. It has two-fold benefits; first, it reduces heavy investments by saving your costs, and second, the effectiveness of your strategy yields better results.

Create Easily Recognized Brand Symbols

As a business owner, have you ever wondered why customers can recognize famous brands quickly? It is because of its brand logo. A brand logo is the identity of the specific business and becomes a means to distinguish its product. However, there is one condition: the brand logo should be unique and easy to remember.

Small businesses often concentrate more on keeping it unique when creating their brand logo. Due to that, the brand logo becomes too difficult for customers to remember. Since they cannot remember the logo, they cannot recall the brand name. So, at the time of purchase, they opt for your competitor.

The brand logo of Maserati is a trident which is quite famous. So, if someone looks at a trident shape, they can remember the company. Same with Lamborghini as it is logo is a bull. It is an example of how being simple sometimes can help you with recognition.

Expand Your Business with Effective Brand Awareness!

Brand awareness helps your business stand out in the market against competitors. It makes your business the first choice for the customers to purchase your products. It is a long-term process, so you need to work consistently. Creating an image of your brand with customers needs various steps. So, choose the most effective one based on the available resources and increase your brand awareness.