How to Build Brand Awareness for your Small Business

What happens if you run a business no one knows about? The answer is simple: no one will buy from you.

You could have the most valuable product or deliver the best customer service, but if your business is unknown, your customers will go elsewhere. 

So how do you let people know about your business? Brand awareness is the key. 

As a small business owner, building brand awareness should be at the top of your digital marketing strategy. The goal is for your target audience to recognise and choose your brand as the solution to a problem they have. 

In this article, we’ll explore what brand awareness is and how you can build brand awareness for your small business.

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is how familiar customers are with a business and its products or services. It is the extent to which customers can recognize or remember a brand and associate it with certain characteristics.

Brand awareness is a key metric for any business, as it is an indication of how well you are performing in the market.

Why does brand awareness matter?

The average person needs to see a brand 5-7 times before they can recognize it. And it takes even more time for them to remember the name and other specifics. What this means is you must regularly promote your business to your target customers if you want them to connect with you. 

In today’s competitive market, brand awareness has become increasingly important to businesses of all sizes. With proper positioning, your small business can stand out in the market and gain the trust of potential customers.

Below are a few reasons why brand awareness matters to your small business:

It builds trust

Brand awareness builds trust with your audience. The more people see content about your business online, the more they learn about you and what you do. As they interact with you online, they are able to trust and do business with you.

It creates association

Brand awareness goes beyond letting people know your name. It gets your target customers to see you as the solution to a problem they have. For example, when you have a question about something, you most likely think of Googling it. 

When people are aware of your brand, they remember you when they have a problem you solve. 

It creates loyalty

When people have positive experiences with your brand, they will likely become loyal customers for a long time. More than half of customers will make an extra effort to buy from a brand they’re loyal to, which is key to sustaining a business. 

It increases market share and sales

If your small business can achieve high brand awareness, you’ll have a competitive advantage over other brands. Your market share will increase as more people choose to buy from you instead of your competitors.

Types of brand awareness

Brand recognition

Brand recognition refers to the ability of customers to identify certain characteristics of a brand when they come in contact with them. 

For example: when someone says Spotify, you immediately know they’re talking about a digital music service. Or when you hear “just do it,” you think about Nike.

Brand recall

Brand recall refers to the customers’ ability to bring up a brand name from memory when prompted by a product or service category.

For example: when a friend asks you to recommend a ride-hailing service and you say Uber.

Top of mind

Top-of-mind awareness is when consumers are familiar with a brand to the extent that it becomes the first they recall whenever prompted by a product category.

For example: if you were to think of a phone brand, you might think of Apple before Samsung.

Visual Branding 

Visual branding is when consumers are able to recognize a brand through visual elements, even without recalling the name.

For example: if you see a lot of celebrities and influencers wearing clothes with the Fendi logo, you might associate the logo with designer clothing without knowing the brand’s name. 

Brand Dominance

Brand dominance is when consumers can only recall one brand when prompted by a product category. 

For example: when you’re asked about electric cars, you will likely think of Tesla.

How to build brand awareness

Brand awareness isn’t just about being popular. It’s about being remembered - and for the right reasons. You don’t want to have 1 million followers on Instagram, but only 10 of them are your customers. 

How can you build awareness for your small business so people can come to you when they have a problem you solve?

Give your brand a personality

A brand personality is the combination of human traits expressed by a brand that influences emotional connections with its audience. Common brand personalities include sophisticated, carefree, family, oriented, athletic and more.

A few ways you can express your brand’s personality are:

• Storytelling: Storytelling helps people remember you. It involves telling stories about your business and the value of your product or service. Storytelling can be used to trigger certain emotions and form a deep connection with your audience.

• Share your core values: Having core values shows that your business stands for something. It also attracts people who believe in similar causes. Some examples of core values you may have are innovation, diversity, authenticity, and more.

• Show your team: Behind every business is a person or a team of people making things happen. And people connect with other people, not businesses. Showing the faces of the people behind your brand will help your audience connect with you.

Have a consistent brand aesthetic 

Brand aesthetic refers to the visual and emotional elements associated with your brand. It includes your logo, brand colours, images, videos, and tone of voice. Being consistent with your brand aesthetic across all channels makes it easy for people to recognise your brand wherever they see it.

When creating your brand aesthetic, be sure to use elements that can attract your audience and also help you stand out from other brands. 

Share content that shows your brand’s authority

Brand authority is how much trust your business has earned as an expert in your industry. A business with high brand authority has a high level of influence because customers see it as reputable and trust its opinion on certain issues.

One way to build your brand’s authority is by posting regularly on social media. Using the right hashtags and keywords will help you get found by the right audience. And the more you share quality content and engage with your audience, the more they trust you.

Another way to build your brand authority is by creating a blog and sharing well-researched articles that are helpful to your audience.

Network and build partnerships

Networking  is one of the best ways to build awareness for your small business. Networking helps you build profitable relationships with potential customers, investors, and other businesses. 

You can network with brands and customers by hosting and attending local events and reaching out to other businesses to launch a partnership marketing campaign. 

One of the benefits of networking and partnering with other brands is that it introduces your business to a new audience. And if you’re associating with a business that has high brand authority, your brand authority can increase as well.

Make it easy for people to promote your brand

What do you do when you find a funny video on the internet? You share it with a friend, right? People love to share things that are interesting. And that can include your small business.

Whether you’re creating a blog post, image, video, or audio, you want to make sure your content is shareable. A few things you can do are:

• Create content that motivates, educates, or entertains your audience. 

• Share visual content - images, videos, gifs and memes.

• Add share buttons to your content, especially on your blog and newsletter.

• Encourage people to share with calls to action and incentives.

Run awareness ads

Building brand awareness with organic reach is great, especially if you have a small budget. But if you are a new business with little to no followers online, you may want to explore running paid ads to create awareness about your business.

Social media ad tools allow you to run ads that focus on awareness and attracting the right people to your business. With such ads, your goal is not to sell your product or service but to let potential customers know you exist.

And as your target audience follows you on social media, they learn more about your business and the value you provide and can become your customers.

Offer freebies and discounts

Who doesn’t like a good deal? Giving away your products, services, or something else of value for free or at a discounted price is a surefire way to draw attention to your business.

You can run a contest, referral program, or even a seasonal promo. Encourage people to share your brand content, create content about your brand, tag or refer their friends, or promote your brand in any other way by promising to reward them.

How to measure brand awareness

Measuring the effectiveness of your brand awareness efforts can be quite challenging because no one metric can show how your business is performing in the market. But you can combine a few metrics to see if your activities are going in the right direction.

1. Customer survey

You can conduct customer surveys through emails, your website, social media, or even phone calls. Surveys can inform you about how your customers found your business and how familiar they are with your brand.

2. Website traffic

Tracking your website traffic can tell you how many people have visited your website and where they came from. Tools like Google Search Console can show you the search terms that help people find you and track your performance over time.

3. Social media engagement

Your social media engagement shows you how many people your content is reaching, who is engaging with you, and their overall perception of your brand. Metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks can give you insights into your social engagements.

4. Audience growth

The rate of your audience growth, especially during a marketing campaign, can tell you how well your business is performing. An increase in social media following or newsletter subscriptions means your content has had a positive impact on your audience.

The bottom line

Your ultimate goal as a business owner is to make sales. This means that building brand awareness for your small business is an attempt at getting customers. Seeing an increase in your sales numbers is a good indicator of a working brand awareness strategy.

If you would like to take the next steps in promoting your small business, reach out to us.