The Task of Building a Powerful Brand Awareness
and the Impact on Your Small Business
To establish strong brand awareness, it’s essential to follow a few steps that will tie your social media presence, your unique content, with the relations you build when attending events and when partnering with other businesses, along with the advertising paid on digital platforms, with the offers you bring to your customers. Your brand should come across as being unique, having greater quality, and feeling better than anything your competitors offer.
Brand awareness is the one essential element in a business. It tells your customers why they can trust you instead of the competition.
Of the many challenges a small business faces, one that requires full attention from the start is your branding; it identifies you and separates you from the competition; it says who you are and why your customers trust you.
As a small business owner, you know how important it is to establish a strong brand identity. However, building brand awareness can be challenging, especially with limited resources and a tight budget. Fortunately, there are several easy and successful tips that you can implement to increase brand awareness for your small business. They include defining your unique selling proposition (USP), leveraging social media, creating valuable content, attending events related to your industry, partnering with other businesses, using paid advertising, and offering exceptional customer services.
Define Your Unique Selling Proposition
Your unique selling proposition (USP) sets you apart from your competitors. As Robert Sheldon from TechTarget states, a USP “might boast the lowest cost, the highest quality, the most experience, the first in this product class or another trait” which makes you different from others, and it is what your competitors don’t have. This is why your customers choose you over them. To increase brand awareness, you need to define your USP and communicate it effectively to your target audience. Your USP should be clear, concise, and memorable. This may sound so easy to you, but when you test out your theory with friends and family and see their faces with a confused or pitiful look, then you know you need more time to think this over. Well,
the last resort is to hire a professional to help you with this.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool for increasing brand awareness. You can use platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram to connect with your target audience, share your brand message, and build a community around your business. This practice allows you to use the power of social networking with the platforms customers know better, being part of the online conversation and engaging with customers. Creating compelling snippets or stories of your content and providing clear call-to-action posts entice your audience to click through and explore what you offer. Post regularly, engage with your followers, and use relevant hashtags to reach a wider audience.
Create Valuable Content
Creating valuable content is an effective way to increase brand awareness. You can create blog posts, videos, infographics, and other types of content that provide value to your target audience. Although the act of creating valuable content is merely to reach your audience, develop content strategy, interact with your customers online, be readable, have a good point of view, etc., the main thing to remember is that content creation should provide valuable information, attract potential customers, and retain existing customers. According to Hubspot’s Erica Santiago, “the key to creating successful inbound content is to make each reader feel like you’re speaking directly to them… know who you’re speaking to, how you want to speak to them, and where to find them.” This will help establish your business as an authority in your industry and attract new customers.
Attend Events
Attending industry events is a great way to increase brand awareness and network with potential customers. You can participate in trade shows, conferences, and other events to showcase your products or services, meet other industry professionals, and promote your brand. FasterCapital states that for businesses to connect with their target audience, events are a powerful tool to increase brand awareness. “By hosting or participating in events, companies can showcase their products or services, engage directly with consumers, and create memorable experiences that leave a lasting impression.” (FasterCapital)
Partner with Other Businesses
Partnering with other businesses is a smart way to increase brand awareness. You can collaborate with complementary businesses to offer joint promotions, sponsor events, or co-create content. This will help you reach a wider audience and establish your brand as a trusted authority in your industry. According to Forbes, there are more than 500,000 start-ups each year, and those that establish a rapport and enter into partnerships with other like-minded businesses have a greater chance of succeeding. One of their examples shows a flower shop partnering with an Etsy shop that provides specialty vases. Another example is proposing a cross-promotion, for example, a business that offers parties for children can partner up with a bakery to have specialty baked goods for the parties.
Use Paid Advertising
Paid advertising can be an effective way to increase brand awareness, especially if you have a limited budget. You can use platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads to reach your target audience and promote your brand message. When paid advertising is done correctly, research has demonstrated an average return on investment of 200% in digital platforms while at the same time having a higher lead conversion, which is as much as 50% higher than organic visitors. According to Triton Commerce, some of the benefits of paid advertising include (i) a scalable budget, allowing to only pay for actual results; (ii) a targeted audience, putting your advertising in the eyes of relevant demographics; (iii) measurable results, analytic data that measures your advertising efforts and helps you adjust accordingly; and (iv) rising above the competition, “paid ads help your small business generate more leads and website traffic that your competitors aren’t generating.” (Triton Commerce)
Offer Exceptional Customer Service
Exceptional customer service is crucial for building brand awareness. Listen to your customers, respond to their inquiries promptly, and go above and beyond to meet their needs. This will help you establish a positive reputation and attract new customers through word-of-mouth referrals.
In conclusion, increasing brand awareness for your small business is a challenging but achievable task. More than that, the results outlast any other strategies. By defining your unique selling proposition, leveraging social media, creating valuable content, attending events, partnering with other businesses, using paid advertising, and offering exceptional customer service, you can establish a strong brand identity and attract new customers.
Sources:
Sheldon, Robert. “Definition: unique selling point (USP).” TechTarget, WhatIs, Enterprise resource planning (ERP).
Santiago, Erica. “The Ultimate Guide to Content Creation.” HubSpot.
FasterCapital. (22 Dec 2023). “Using Event Marketing to Increase Brand Awareness.”
Triton Commerce. “The Ultimate Paid Advertising Guide for Small Businesses.”
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