The 7 Best Ways to Market Your Business for Better Brand Awareness

HubSpot beautifully summarizes what brand awareness is by saying: “Have you ever heard people refer to themselves as “Apple people,” “Nike people,” or “Trader Joe’s” people? This is what brand awareness can do for a brand: embed itself into consumer lifestyles and purchase habits so that they don’t have to think twice before becoming a customer - time and time again.”

Brand awareness is vital for your business and in this article, we will be sharing the 7 best ways you can market your business for better brand awareness.

1. Create a social media presence

Establishing a strong social media presence is an essential step in growing your brand awareness. In 2020 alone, over 3.6 billion people were using social media around the world and with the emergence of new social media apps every few months, this number is only expected to rise.

Creating a social media presence is one of the best ways to market your business to a large audience whether you ow a restaurant, hotel or SaaS company. What’s more, it’s completely free! You choose the content to post, you choose which accounts to follow, and you interact with your audience.

Social media provides brands with the opportunity to obtain a loyal following, connect with their customers on a more personal level, and advertise their products all over the world. So, it’s no surprise that over 50% of brand reputation is the result of creating a social media presence.

Pure Nails is one brand that has achieved online success with the launch of their social media accounts. They use social media to showcase their nail art, advertise new products, launch competitions, share discount codes and even advertise job openings. For them, social media is all about gaining visibility and connecting with customers.

Through social channels such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, companies are able to build their brand awareness alongside their customer base.

1. Launch a referral program

The best way to market your business is through referrals. 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know, meaning they are more likely to make a purchase, commit to a service and engage with a brand. Referrals are one of the best ways to market your business for better brand awareness and they help you gain more customers as well.

There are two types of referrals: one requires asking for a referral from an existing customer to one of their industry contacts who may be interested in your services. The second is asking for a referral from a customer to one of their friends. Both of these options are just as effective as each other and are a great way to market your business to potential customers.

Of course, your current customers aren’t simply going to pass your details on (not unless they’re really nice!). Most of the time businesses need to offer some kind of referral scheme where the referrer receives something in return.

A few great ways you can do this are by offering a gift voucher, providing a product or service discount, offering payment or creating a kind of points system where for every person referred, the referrer gets points towards a big prize. Initiatives like these are a great way to engage your customers and help win new business.

2. Partner with other businesses

Similarly to referrals, business partnerships are a great way to cultivate a supportive community and grow your business. Building your professional network, by partnering with other businesses in similar industries, allows you to:

• Find mentors and professional support
• Cultivate a supportive community
• Gain access to more business resources
• Stay inspired and challenged to keep learning
• Seek advice from seasoned professionals

Growing your already established business in isolation, without a community of support, is extremely difficult - both personally and in terms of developing brand awareness. That’s why we highly recommend partnering with other businesses when you looking to scale and grow your business.

3. Public relations

If you want to increase your brand awareness, you need the help of public relations experts. Otherwise known as PR, the purpose of this strategy is to get people talking about your brand. PR experts achieve this by getting your business published on different websites and promoted on social media. Through sharing blog posts, company announcements and customer testimonials (to name a few) PR experts are able to promote your brand to new audiences across multiple channels.

According to Forbes, it’s important to have a PR strategy in place because “good PR can help with investors, increase backlinks to your website, increase brand awareness and help companies claim the title of “the first of their kind.” If you want your brand to be talked about for all the right reasons, you need to invest in PR.

Most companies don’t invest in PR until further down the line, but we believe that PR is (and should be) one of the top priorities for growing brands. That way, you can get your service and offering in front of a wider audience fast and you can watch as customer interest, engagement, and sales begin to climb.

4. Grow your mailing list

Emailing marketing is a fantastic tool to utilize if you want to grow your brand awareness. Despite this, many businesses avoid growing a mailing list because there are so many other things to focus on. Let this be an encouragement that growing a mailing list is one of the best things you can do to ensure business success. With a mailing list you will:

• Attract new customers
• Build a loyal and engaged following
• Create personal connections with your customers
• Increase traffic to your website
• Enjoy the benefits of a low-cost marketing strategy

Taking the time to grow your mailing list from the very beginning is one of the most effective ways to increase your brand awareness. In fact, the research shows that email marketing is almost 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping your business attract more customers. So, if you want to increase your brand awareness and acquire new customers sooner, you should prioritize growing your mailing list.

5. Optimize your website for search

SEO, otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization, is one of the best free marketing tactics available to businesses today. The aim of SEO strategies is to optimize your website for search engines so that when users type a related search into Google, your company pops up. SEO is a great way to increase brand awareness, particularly for already established companies looking to scale.

There are many elements to search engine optimization. To ensure your website appears when users search for related keywords, your website needs to be fully optimized in the following ways:

• Technical optimization: This ensures your website looks and functions beautifully. Your site should be fast loading, easy to navigate and optimized for multi-device use.
• Content optimization: All the content on your website should be optimized with the relevant keywords so that users can find what they are looking for with ease. Use these persuasive copywriting tips to engage and convert your readers.
• Off-page optimization: This is where public relations come into play. In order to increase Google’s rankings, your website needs to have plenty of high-quality backlinks.

We could literally spend all day talking about SEO because there are so many different ways to optimize your website for search. However, we hope that the brief explanations above will provide you with a good starting point.

6. Create engaging forms of content

If you want people to recognize your brand and engage with your message, you need to create content that is engaging. Not everybody wants to read long articles or fact-filled reports. After all, 90% of the information our brains ingest is visual. This is why many companies are prioritizing the creation of visual content, such as infographics and videos.

If you want people to become aware of your brand you need to create a variety of content. With the rise of social media has come an increase in demand for visual content such as photos, infographics, video clips and memes. So, consider how you can incorporate these forms of content into your business marketing strategy because the more varied your content, the bigger audience you will attract.

Final words

Growing an already established business is an exciting time. However, it can also be a time fraught with worry. You may find yourself asking whether people will engage with your brand as you scale your marketing activities, buy your products or recommend your service to their friends. These worries are perfectly natural but there is a remedy and that is marketing your business for better brand awareness.

We hope the tips in this article have inspired you that there are many strategies to try. Just don’t forget that building brand awareness can take time. You might need to test out several different strategies before you find those that work for you. Whatever you try, we feel confident that the tips we have shared above will help you achieve your professional goals.