Use the power of the brand Awareness Strategy and brand recognition to inspire more sales for your products today! Find out how it is done here.

Coca Cola, IBM, Google. These are brands that have some of the most recognizable logos in the world. Amazon, Samsung, Disney, Toyota, Microsoft; these brands have taken to building their name to such heights that it is not longer the product or service that matters. If this is the company behind it, quality is not just assured, it is expected. These brands do not need to display as much ads or marketing behind their product except to just slap their logo on it and call it a day.

However, there is something else at play that these brands have cultivated over a long time, and that is brand awareness.

 

Brand Awareness Strategy– What Is It?

Think of the companies mentioned above. They are certainly not new companies. Amazon might be among the youngest of these, and still, it has taken more than two and a half decades to get it where it is now. These companies have formed brands, brands that are more than just household names, but are recognized worldwide.

They have developed a brand awareness strategy that is constantly growing despite their successful foray into worldwide brand recognition. These companies do not consider brand awareness to be an on and off switch, where once you have brand awareness, you can rest on your laurels. Instead, they take their brand awareness strategy to a different height year by year.

 

Brand Awareness Strategy

Brand awareness measures the level of recognition a company or brand has to the general public through the logo, its name, or any other definition characteristic unique to the company. For example, McDonalds is recognized by its name, its unique logo, and as a leading fast-food chain worldwide. Amazon, however, is more recognized by its name and fast shipping than its logo.

That is because each of these companies either had something truly unique, or build their brand strategy around a certain attribute of the company. Brand awareness if about more than just a product. It is the first interaction of the customer with a company, your company, or your products. Sure, customers might interact with a product before they become aware of a brand, but those are coincidences, and brand awareness is just as much about post-purchase behavior as it is pre-purchase and during it.

 

Building a Brand Awareness Strategy

Brands that have a high enough awareness than their competitors tend to be the ones that customers satisfaction go to. That means more recognition, more word of mouth, more confidence from products, more reliability of customer retention, and more likeness of pre-release hype for products released by a specific brand. In other words, brand awareness is a must for any organization, as it as merits upon merits. However, it takes time, effort, and resources to build, the first step of which, is to create a brand itself.

 

Be Unique…In Your Own Way

The first thing a brand has to do is to be unique enough not just to stand out from competitors, but to stand out among everything else. Coca Cola is so recognizable not just because of its brand prestige, but also because it has a bright red canvas with a white text and a unique font. It is designed to be eye-catching. You notice the red and white and instantly have the words ‘Coca-Cola’ in your head before you even read the words themselves.

That is what good design creates. A uniqueness that lets you stand out. Uniqueness and quality do not mean that you make your brand identity as complex and colorful as possible. You need a blend of everything working together in harmony. You need the brand image to fit your organization’s image. You need the colors to fit the mood you want to go for. You need the text to signify your product stack. Everything makes the brand, not just the logo or name.

 

Sales, Sales, Sales

Want to buy sneakers? Nike. Want to buy a phone? Apple or Samsung. Want to buy a laptop? HP or Dell. Want to buy a car? Corolla or Mercedes (and Tesla for some added electricity!). These are examples of when brands are synonymous with their products. Despite the fact that several competitors offering the same product exist, the brand is the first that comes into a customer’s head. Some might just even buy the things they think about, and that boosts sales.

Sales bring new customers, more trust, more budget for the next big thing, more capital to expand, more budget for advertising and revenue to boost sales further, and more opportunities for improving brand awareness…and sales. Spend money to make money, and spend that money to make more money. Branding, just means you spend less and less to make more and more. That is the simple yet effective idea behind it.

 

How Long Should Your Brand Awareness Strategy Be?

The timeline for creating solid brand awareness is not set in stone, and it should not be. Rome was not built in a day. You might not be gunning to build Rome, but you also won’t build your brand strategy in a day. A few years might not be enough, or you might catch a lucky break and hit the awareness explosion jackpot you want. Regardless, the first two things that any brand awareness strategy must consider, is that it will take time, and that you need to be able to change all the time.

 

Brand Awareness – How Long Does it Take?

No matter what timeline you pick, it will always fall short. That is because brand awareness is always ongoing. It does not stop after reaching a certain threshold. You always have more customers to target, new product lines to launch, new business opportunities to consider. Brand awareness grows slowly, organically, even if you go aggressive with your awareness and outreach strategy.

 

Improving and Building Your Brand Awareness

First off, know the market you are targeting, and know that you are targeting a market. That means not just knowing which customer demographic to aim your awareness strategy for, but also to know what they like and dislike, so that your brand and its products align with what they want.

Moreover, despite the fact that brand awareness is always ongoing, does not mean you should not set up milestones. They let you know that progress is being made. Set up some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as well to keep your brands up to a certain standard, making sure brand awareness does not drop rather than only strategizing for its improvement. Contingency for potential failure is always a good thing.

Targeted campaigns are also a great way to focus on a specific audience. You are not looking to bring new customers, but to make sure that existing customers are so invested in your product that they stay with you.

Lastly, keep your brand awareness channels diverse without being less focused on any one. If you keep an online presence but don’t maintain a physical one, you are giving away free brand awareness points. Diversifying your customer touch points and advertising channels is a great way to ensure that you are not bottlenecking your brand awareness.

 

Conclusion

Brand awareness is by no means a nascent concept, and is continually seeing its importance rise over the years. However, it should also be known that brand awareness and building a brand awareness strategy are both time consuming ventures that need to be invested on heavily, with them giving a return one, two, or even ten years after the fact.

Brand awareness is a good thing in the sense that the more you have, the better. Here, we shared a few ways how you can build it, as well as what it is, with the added consideration that you are always building brand awareness, even if you and your organization are on top of the business world.