
5 Tactics to Stand Out & Achieve Brand Awareness
The million dollar question a lot of marketers have to answer is ‘how to promote a brand to the target audience?’ Be it F&B, cosmetics, tech products or travel agents, everyone wants their brand to be known. Well, of course they do. Brand awareness is the first step towards a customer’s ultimate decision to purchase. Whether they make the purchase seconds after seeing your product on a shelf, or after months of research and deliberation, they have to be aware of your brand first.
80% of social marketers say that brand awareness is their biggest goal. So it rings true that getting awareness is often what marketers are doing. If you’re like them, you are probably doing the same and dreaming of the day when you introduce yourself and your company, people will say “Oh, that company? I’ve heard of you guys before!”
Getting brand awareness requires several key tactics, offline and online. Apart from the usual traditional advertising on print and mass media, we’ll take a look at 5 tactics that can generate brand awareness and help your brand stand out:
- Online Search Ads
Online search ads are one of the most common marketing tactics online. It is also one of the most effective. Search ads can increase brand awareness by 80%. This can happen because your advertisement will only appear to people who are relevant to your business, which means it is targeted and strategic. It works by advertising websites that match certain keywords submitted by the user. Therefore, your ad will be seen by people who are actively seeking information about the things you do.Google offers AdWords as their advertising platform while Bing offers BingAds. You can set your target audience, location and language, and the keywords you want to be paired with using these platforms, all according to your own budget. As per the pay-per-click (PPC) model, you’ll be charged advertising fees whenever your link is clicked.
Trivago and other hotel-booking websites are some of the best success stories when it comes to using online search ads to generate awareness. Thanks to their strategic search ads, people recognise their brands that appears every time they type in the keywords ‘hotels near me’.
- Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is today’s buzzword, heard everywhere across industries. It is adopted by a lot of marketers in a day and age where following and stalking people online is no longer considered creepy, but a social norm. Its predecessor was celebrity endorsements, evolving today onto social media and vlogs. Influencer marketing can generate brand awareness by piggybacking the fame of key opinion leaders or KOLs, who will introduce or review your brand in front of their established fanbase.A key metric to determine the strength of an influencer is the number of their social followers and engagements. But more importantly, a marketer also has to determine if the KOL’s fanbase matches the brand’s target audience. It would be weird for a fashion blogger to review yoga balls or Fan Bingbing to remind you to pay your taxes.Taiwan computer brand Acer used influencer marketing to introduce its new Z series smartphone. Using three KOLs to fit into three target groups, Acer managed to get the right people to talk about their phones, thus generating awareness among the right target audience.
- Content Marketing
The disadvantage of advertisements is that people don’t trust them as much anymore. They have learned to tune out the noise from billboards, pamphlets, spam emails, and radio ads. Content marketing is a remedy for intrusive ads. It generates brand awareness by educating, entertaining, helping an audience solve a problem. A lot of content marketing happens online because most people would search for possible answers to their problems online.Content marketing is said to help generate 3 times more leads than traditional outbound marketing, which indicates an effective brand awareness method. It is a more organic way for people to discover your brand, which can result in brand trust and legitimacy.Any brand can use content marketing, even beachy surfing brands like Rip Curl. This Australian brand has its own blog called The Search, where it chronicles stories, videos, and photographs seen and told by surfers themselves. With more than 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, Rip Curl invites people to join the tidal wave and do a gnarly Hang Ten.
- Social Media
No doubt, social media is a game-changer that writes new rules about online marketing. 3.2 billion people worldwide are on social media right now and brands are scrambling to get their attention. Each social media platform has their advertising services, from Facebook Ads, YouTube to even Quora. Social media ads are cost-effective, yet very powerful. They work a little similar like search ads, where a brand appears to a targeted audience that matches their criteria.But even without paid social media ads, your brand can still achieve awareness through organic reach and engagement. Great social media posts are friendly and entertaining. People will engage and share likeable content to the point of virality. The more shares, the bigger audience reach your brand will receive. Even if you’re a B2B brand, social media marketing should be on the list to kickstart your brand awareness process.Take General Electric (GE) for example. You would think making a presence on social media is hard when you’re a big conglomerate and a B2B brand. But GE managed to do it using the hashtag #GEInstawalk on Instagram. One of their top posts, featuring a behind-the-scene look of their innovative technology, garnered an impressive 9,000 likes.
- Marketing Campaign
But of course, nothing works as well as a planned marketing campaign will clear-cut goals and measurements. A brand awareness campaign is a well-thought and well-discussed strategy that needs the commitment of the marketer, as well as the decision-makers and top-level executives. Brand leaders would need to understand the flow and promises of a campaign for it to go smoothly and effectively.A brand awareness campaign is usually a mix of all 5 tactics, complementing traditional marketing tactics if the brand requires it. It can be done in-house as an internal marketing project, or through a marketing agency that understands the environment and industry. Getting professional help would also mean that your campaign is well-managed and have the right arsenal to deliver great results.
But it all comes down to the same thing; achieving brand awareness, and to stand out in a hyper-connected world of pop culture, social sharing and IoT. It is not impossible to be noticed against the noise. With the right tactics and strategy, your brand can be known and recognised among the people you wish to reach.