Ever wondered when you’re ordering a drink at a fast-food restaurant, you ask for a coke instead of cola? Or even when you cut yourself, you look for a Band-Aid and not a plastic bandage.
These extremely popular terms are proprietary eponyms also called genericized trademark. These brands have become so famous that they’ve replaced seemingly generic terms with their brand names to describe a product.
Without a doubt, they’ve reached the apex of brand awareness.
You must be thinking, is it just a matter of having one genius idea that no one else ever thought about? Or that these enormously successful brands are started by billionaires who have all the money in the world to create something which we could only dream of?
The answer is “No”. Epic brand recognition doesn’t need to be a struggle anymore. And let’s get this straight, you don’t always need a MASSIVE budget and/or LARGE billboards or EXPENSIVE TV ads to make people become aware of your brand.
All you really need is a pinch of CREATIVITY in your brand awareness strategy.
This article will explain everything you need to boost awareness of your brand. You can boost your BRAND RECOGNITION using simple and easy digital marketing hacks, where you run a targeted campaign without wasting any money.
1. Idea: Create Infographics
Fact check: “ Our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text. “
[ SOURCE: Fast Company ]
It’s always fun to look at colorful designs than it is to read plain text. Colors can make either subtle or drastic adjustments in our emotional state. They have a deep impact on our emotions and that is critical no matter if you are making a logo or an infographic for your website.
This is the reason infographics are the most effective branding technique when it comes to convincing and engaging the audience.
Infographic marketing is a content marketing tactic- a bright and powerful way to display interesting data and statistics for viewers. It converts dry and boring plain text into captivating and visually compelling information.
Let’s be honest, people avoid reading the bulk of plain text and pages with words and words only.
Source: Typeform
Tools you can use to make infographics:
- Piktochart
- Visme
- Adobe Illustrator
Case Study: KISSmetrics- a customer engagement automation platform – use infographics to increase brand visibility.
In just two years, the company created 47 infographics, like this one about how page-loading time can cost you.
Within the two-year period, they’ve generated 2.5 million visitors!
Lesson: Digestible infographics can make complex data easy to understand in a visual format, you can get millions of visitors to your website.
2. Idea: Referral Programs
Fun Fact: “92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know – Nielsen.“ [Source: Annex Cloud]
Your audience will gladly spread the word of your product or service when they know they’ll get an extra perk. When these programs are correctly implemented, they build trust with your audience, more so than any traditional advertising will.
After all, you’re more likely to use a product when a friend refers you to it. So let the users do a little marketing for your brand.
Source: BostonDigital
Case study: Dropbox is a perfect example of how smart referral programs can growth hack a business.
They made it really easy for those signing up to refer a friend and even incentivized them with extra storage. (up to 16 GB).
Source: How to Geek
Results? A 60% increase in SIGN-UPS!
Lesson: Referral program can be a game-changer if implemented correctly. It can help generate tons of word-of-mouth, deliver a huge number of sign-ups and save countless advertising money.
3. Idea: Create a Freebie Strategy
Who doesn’t love free stuff right?
In a freebie strategy, the company offers a low-cost product or it even gives it away for free. But always bear in mind that if starting a freebie marketing strategy for your brand awareness, ask yourself what will it bring value to others, in return for something of value to you.
Basically, you want to offer anything that’s going to give your ideal client a quick win and full of value. You can give freebies to your special customers who are most involved with your business and get the biggest prizes.
Case Study: Uber not only offered discounts to its customers on the first few rides but also provided free rides to well-connected attendees. Their aim of this exercise was simple, to let the customers have a taste of their service.
Source: Instapage
Offering a freemium option allows customers to get a taste of your brand and product or service before making a purchase.
Lesson: It all depends on your type of business and product offer, freemium offers may be the best way to raise awareness of your brand among your audience. You just have to provide a wow experience to your ideal customers free of charge in some clever ways.
4. Idea: Make it Social and Personal
Let your consumer experience your personality through your advertising. You just have to think of clever ways of establishing your brand as a person. All you have to do in the first step is to define your narrative to give your brand a personality.
This is a great strategy where you have an opportunity to mix your traditional marketing campaigns with brand awareness campaigns.
Case Study: At this age, we cannot resist reading online reviews before purchasing anything. Yelp went one step ahead with creativity and added a human element to the reviewer’s experience by simply building a profile behind each one. In this way, reviews became more trustworthy, and reviewers feel like they were becoming part of a community. Resultantly, Yelp has since accumulated over 142 million reviews.
Source: Yelp Blog
Lesson: Make your user experience more human and personal. Try building communities that enable your customers to communicate with each other, allowing them to learn from their experiences and interact over a common interest.
CAUTION: The One Big Mistake You Can’t Afford to Make
Brand awareness isn’t about promoting one’s self, it’s about focusing on the needs and pain points of the audience. Remember too much self-promotional or uninteresting content is also listed as a specific turn off. And just so you know, according to Buzzstream, 45% of consumers will unfollow a brand on social media if their platform is dominated by too much self-promotion.
These hacks are better than their more expensive counterparts for establishing and building awareness for your brand.
Also, encourage your employees to have a personal brand of themselves because statistics show that leads generated via employee social marketing initiatives convert at least 7 times more frequently than other leads.
Eventually, you will find yourself with a loyal audience that recognizes your brand among competitors, they will choose your brand over your competitors time and time again.
Over to You
Brand awareness is a powerful albeit vague concept that can have a huge impact on your marketing related efforts, consumer perception, and revenue.
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