Increase Brand Awareness for Startups
Scott Kalapos on Jan 10, 2023
What is one of the most difficult aspects of starting your own business? Finding customers to buy your stuff. You might have the greatest idea in the world for a product or service, but if you can't convince anyone to make an actual purchase, your startup will go nowhere. That is why it is so important to have a plan for building your audience.
This process is known as creating brand awareness. When you run a brand awareness campaign, you are looking for ways to tell people about who you are and what you offer to the customer. Other brands that have established themselves have already done this important step to lay the groundwork for growth, but even the largest and most successful companies have to consistently employ brand awareness strategies to find new customers.
How Building Brand Awareness Helps Your Startup
There are several reasons why you should emphasize brand awareness efforts to grow your new business. Here are a few of the benefits that this type of marketing campaign can provide.
Learning Your Target Audience
When you are first starting your journey as a new company, you probably have an idea of what your ideal customer looks like. Determining your target audience (opens in a new window) is an important process for any startup. But as you build brand awareness, the response should inform your idea of the target audience. What types of people are responding to your startup and wanting to know more or even make a purchase? What salary range do they fall under? Where do they live? What kind of car do they drive? How old are they? Answering these questions can guide your future marketing efforts and help you learn how your target audience thinks.
Increasing Exposure
The main goal of every brand awareness campaign is to introduce the company to a new audience. This results in exposure to potential customers who could check out your small business. When you introduce yourself to the right audience, you can start to become a household name in the local area that you serve.
Promote Your Services
It is tough to promote your product or services if there is no one around to notice. By creating awareness for your brand, you are forming a platform to display your solutions to the people that need them. When the right person learns that you have just what they are looking for, you have created a new customer.
Strategies to Build Brand Awareness
Now that you know the why, it is time to talk about the how. How can you implement a successful brand awareness campaign to bring in more customers and share your solutions with them? Here are a few methods that you may want to employ.
Embrace Social Media Channels
For a startup, social media is extremely valuable as a tool. Various social media platforms give you a space to share updates, connect with audiences, and build brand loyalty. Creating social media accounts should be an early step in the process, but you should know which ones to use.
For many brands, Facebook has become a helpful resource with managed business pages, targeted advertising, groups, and other helpful features. To connect with other local businesses or slightly older generations, this platform would be perfect.
If you are in an industry that caters to younger generations or is very visually oriented, then Instagram may be perfect. You can share images, videos, stories, or reels with your followers to increase social engagement with your target market.
If you hope to build awareness for your brand with business professionals, the answer is LinkedIn. This platform is professionally focused and is a space for sharing business insights and connections. Social media posts on LinkedIn should be more informative rather than purely entertaining.
Create a Content Marketing Strategy
Creating content is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your knowledge of the industry and why customers can trust you. You can create visual or written content that speaks directly to consumers who are facing problems that your product or service can solve.
Website Content
When you create content for your website, you can answer consumer questions before they ask them. You can also tell your brand story in a way that draws people in and familiarizes them with your business. When you combine great content with search engine optimization, you could see additional traffic from organic searches, which will build awareness.
Blog Posts
Blogs are another helpful mechanism for startups, especially when they are trying to get their name into the public sphere. You can write guest posts for other reputable publishers or start your own and share each entry to your social media accounts.
Offline Marketing
Though the digital world should be a major focus of your marketing strategy to build awareness for your brand, going offline presents many opportunities for increased exposure as well.
Promotional Products
Branded merchandise is another method that can build brand awareness. This type of advertising uses everyday items like a t-shirt, an umbrella, a towel, a hat, office supplies, and more to expose people to the brand. These items can be given away as free stuff or sold at an event. This strategy allows businesses to turn enthusiastic customers and employees into loyal ambassadors for the brand.
Print Advertising
There will always be a place for print advertising in the business world. You can purchase newspaper ads, magazine ads, billboards, brochures, and direct mail pieces to tell consumers about your brand and try to guide their next purchase.
Referral Program
Want to turn your biggest fans into free advertising? Offer a discount or reward if they refer someone else to your company. This awareness strategy can lead to fast growth for your customer base since people love discounts. It isn't rocket science.
Turn Brand Awareness into Growth
If you have no customers, you cannot grow. It is that simple. To sell your products and services, you need an audience, and brand awareness is a key aspect of any marketing strategy. Conduct the necessary research ahead of time so that you don't waste time with the wrong marketing channels. Check out how large companies like Coca-Cola or Old Spice ran brand awareness campaigns to grow their audience and reach their level of success.
