Are you curious as to why a particular brand comes to mind when a specific product or service category is mentioned?

The answer is:

BRAND AWARENESS

Creating a brand is one thing, but ingraining it in the minds of consumers is an entirely different endeavor.

Developing this level of brand awareness will serve as the foundation for the success of your other marketing efforts, as consumers become increasingly familiar with your brand.

Today, we would like to discuss the significance of brand awareness and how it can help you increase customer loyalty, popularity, and sales.

Brand awareness is the extent to which a target audience is familiar with a brand, able to identify its distinctive qualities, and implicitly associates them with particular products or services.

It describes the extent to which customers are cognizant of your brand.

Additionally, there are truly three distinct levels of brand awareness:

• Brand Recall: The association between a particular product category and a brand is referred to as brand recall. The majority of individuals can recall three to five brands within a product category.
• Brand Recognition: Customers’ ability to distinguish a brand from the competition based on its packaging, color scheme, logo, or slogan is referred to as brand recognition.
• Brand Dominance: also known as top-of-mind awareness, is the customer’s association of an entire product category with a specific brand, as the brand becomes synonymous with the product.

Want a perfect example of brand awareness in the actual world?

Simply consider Coca-Cola:

Considering that 94% of the global population recognizes the red-and-white logo and “Coca-Cola” is the second-most comprehended word in the world, it’s fair to say that this iconic brand is everywhere.

If you’ve ever pondered why, when offered a soft drink, Coca-Cola is one of the first things that come to mind, you now know why.

How about that for a brand awareness strategy?

We cannot emphasize the importance of developing brand awareness enough.

Although this is an oversimplification, consumers must be aware of the existence of your brand before they can contemplate making a purchase. Consequently, brand awareness is crucial to a customer’s voyage.

One-third of consumers acknowledge that they have a specific brand in mind when they go purchasing. And if they think of your brand, you already have an advantage.

Recent reports indicate that 77% of consumers refer to certain products by their brand names, even when the products are manufactured by a different manufacturer. Kleenex, for instance, is now commonly used as a synonym for “tissues.”

This indicates that, with sufficient brand recognition, your brand name will become synonymous with the type of product you sell.

But there’s more.

Here are some additional reasons to develop brand awareness:

• Awareness influences brand perception, which in turn fosters brand loyalty and can be the determining factor in encouraging consumers to make recurrent purchases. Given that 90% of purchase decisions are made subconsciously, you want your brand to be foremost in consumers’ minds.
• Brand awareness correlates directly with an increase in your share of Google searches, which correlates with an increase in your market share. When your brand is the first one people think of or search for on Google, you elevate the bar for competition.
• In a similar vein, there is a reason why branded search is one of the most important metrics for measuring brand awareness: developing brand awareness can also increase your website’s organic traffic.
• Consumers aren’t risk-takers. We must therefore bring consumers to a point where they are willing to alter their purchasing and usage patterns. A successful marketing strategy ensures that your audience engages with your brand across multiple key channels, thereby becoming familiar with your brand.

Strong brand recognition can help your business stand out from the constant barrage of advertising that consumers experience daily. In the past, traditional marketing methods were effective. To engage their audiences in the right manner and at the right time, businesses must now consider novel approaches.

Obviously, this is not something that can be accomplished overnight – or even with a single undertaking. If you are sincere about establishing the presence and relevance of your brand, you will need to invest time and effort.

Here are some suggestions and best practices that can be implemented immediately:

• Collaborate with influencers. Associating your brand with a well-known, well-liked social media influencer can increase engagement and help you reach your target audience. People have more faith in endorsements from their favored influencers than in traditional advertisements.
• Participate in brand alliances. Collaborations between brands with similar target demographics could double your exposure, expand your customer base, and increase consumer trust in both companies.
• Maximize your social media presence. The majority of brand-consumer interactions occur online, specifically on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Here, your consumers can engage with your authentic brand expression in a less formal setting.
• Do not overlook SEO. Emerging brands continue to make SEO errors, despite the fact that this may appear to be a piece of advice that “everyone knows.” Regard your website as a crucial asset for brand awareness; it is crucial for your brand’s online exposure.
• Diversified strategy. Most significantly, you should diversify your approach. According to research, consumers require multiple interactions with your brand before engaging with it. Understanding which channels these consumers utilize is essential for developing a diverse awareness strategy that reaches the appropriate audiences.