Brand Awareness: What It Is & How to Increase It

Creating brand awareness is not just a marketing strategy. It is a way to solidify your brand and make your mark in the industry.

By building brand awareness, you will be able to expand your audience or gain loyal customers, which all boils down to achieving your business goals and objectives.

Learn all about brand awareness, how you can improve it for your brand and how you can create different marketing materials to boost your brand awareness with Venngage. through this post.

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What is brand awareness and why is it important?
3 types of brand awareness
How to build brand awareness

What is brand awareness and why is it important?

Brand awareness or consumer awareness pertains to how well consumers are informed about your brand and can associate the right product or service with it.

When a consumer sees a post on their feed and immediately knows it’s from your brand, or when a customer specifically chooses your brand over another — that’s a form of brand awareness.

Another example is how quickly various movies and shows will come to mind when you see or hear the name, ‘Disney:’

Brand awareness can measure how memorable and recognizable the distinct qualities of your brand are to your target audience. It is important to build brand awareness because:

It helps your brand become top-of-mind with your target audience
It helps audiences understand and become comfortable with your brand
It helps attract new customers
It helps create loyal customers

Often seen as the first stage of the marketing funnel, building brand awareness is the first step to gaining a customer base. By making your brand more familiar to potential customers, you can influence the decision-making and buying process and make way for repeated transactions in the future.

Why is brand awareness important on social media?

Having social media presence is essential in growing your brand.

With 2.91 billion users on Facebook alone, you can get closer to your target demographic and expand your reach at the same time by becoming a part of various social media networks.

Facebook is a great place to start a brand awareness campaign because it has various tools that can help you track impressions and engagement and measure brand awareness.

Moreover, the flexibility of social media platforms can help you develop a more comprehensive content strategy and social media marketing plan.

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What are the 3 types of brand awareness?

There are different types of brand awareness, and learning about each of them and how they differ from one another can help you create effective and well-rounded brand awareness campaigns.

Brand recall

You know how an iPhone is the first thing you can think of when you are asked to name a famous mobile phone? That is brand recall.

Brand recall refers to the ability of a consumer to recall and reference a brand name off the top of their head when prompted with a specific product or service category.

Usually, consumers are able to recall at least 3 brands in a product category. This number is determined by various factors like usage frequency, brand loyalty, and the awareness set or the products that a consumer has heard of.

For example, a housekeeper is more likely to recall more brand names under the category of cleaning products, while a marketer working for a SaaS company is more likely to recall the names of different SaaS products.

Brand recognition

Brand awareness and brand recognition are terms that are often used interchangeably but there is actually a difference between them.

Brand awareness is how knowledgeable a consumer is about your brand while brand recognition is how accurately a consumer can identify your brand using only visual indicators like colors, symbols, or shapes.

An example is how you automatically know that this big yellow ‘M’ refers to McDonald’s. Without any words or other factors to give you a hint, you are able to recognize a brand based on a mere symbol.

Brand awareness is a deeper level of brand recognition in which consumers are able to recall not just the brand name but the feelings and emotions that it elicits.

Brand dominance

Brand dominance on the other hand, is when a company dominates a certain product or service category by being the only brand that a consumer is able to recall. Think about how Google has become the go-to search engine and has dominated this particular category.

When a large number of consumers can only recall a single brand name in a product category, that brand becomes a household name.

A household name is something that is well known to the public, and it is often an indicator of a brand’s success.

Another form of brand dominance is when a brand name becomes synonymous with a product category. An example is how the brand Coke is used to refer to cola products, or how ‘Xerox’ now stands for photocopy or the act of photocopying when it is actually the name of a corporation.

What is the difference between brand image and brand awareness?

As we have discussed, brand awareness is when a consumer can recall and recognize a brand instantly. Meanwhile, brand image is how a consumer views your brand.

An example would be how the brand Nike is associated with strength, courage, or excellence. This is reflected in their slogan “Just Do It.” as well as different ways they market their products, which have affected how consumers view their brand.

Brand image has something to do with your brand design, in which key elements like logo design, brand colors, brand swag, or typography come into play; and it is responsible for conveying what your brand stands for.

An example of how brand colors are integrated into the brand logo.

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How to build brand awareness: examples and strategies

Increasing brand awareness can help you generate leads, boost sales, or achieve whatever business goal you may have. To strengthen brand awareness, understanding distinct categories of names can be beneficial. Different types of brand names such as descriptive or evocative, capture and resonate differently with audiences. Incorporating such insights into your branding strategy can aid in making a memorable impact on consumers. Here are effective ways and strategies you can use to raise brand awareness:

Content marketing

One of the most powerful digital marketing strategies to exist to this day, content marketing is the creation and distribution of relevant and valuable content in order to attract and retain an audience.

By consistently delivering quality content to your audience, you can increase brand awareness and connect with your customers on a more personal level.

Content can be anything from images to articles to videos. Visual content is more attractive and memorable so it will be more successful at engaging audiences and bringing increased brand awareness.

By creating original, unique engaging content, there’s a chance that it can become viral and thus get more people to know about your brand.

We’ve had our share of creating viral content, and some of them really earned us lots of press and brand recognition, such as this one about graphic design trends which has earned a link from Creative Bloq:

Infographics are a type of content that’s not only easy to create but is inherently shareable and can build organic reach. You can use infographics to share fun facts, show data, or give helpful tips.

Here is a template you can use to describe your company’s products/services:

Or this one, to explain how your company has developed over the years:

As you’re creating visual content, make sure everything is on brand (you’re trying to boost your brand awareness after all!). Do that by easily applying your brand colors and logo to all your designs with My Brand Kit:

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that involves using endorsements from influencers or people who have authority in your niche or industry.

Influencers have a huge social following and they can significantly affect the purchase decisions of your target audience.

By collaborating with influencers, you can produce the most relatable content that can provide your brand with more visibility and reach and ultimately improve brand awareness.

Organic social media

Organic content is any social media activity that is not a paid promotion or advertisement.

Facebook’s algorithm for organic content as well as generated reactions and comments can help in measuring brand awareness.

Organic posts such as social media graphics, contests, and written posts can help you naturally gain an audience and build a relationship with existing customers.

Here is an example of non-promotional social media content that you can do. You can use this template to create various holiday posts:

Or create an Instagram carousel with this template:

Related:

Social media advertising

As mentioned, social media is a vast and flexible platform that allows you to publish different types of content.

Advertising on Facebook allows you to target exact audiences and increase your conversions and sales with a lower cost of acquisition. Gender, age, location, interests, and user behavior or activity are just some of the segments that you can focus on.

Facebook can also help you produce better ad types that will help get your brand seen. Carousel ads, Messenger ads, and Facebook stories are just some of the unique promotional content that you can create on Facebook to grow your brand awareness.

Here is a Facebook ad template that you can customize and use for your brand:

Referral programs

Finally, what better way to raise brand awareness than through word-of-mouth recommendations from your own existing customers?

Encouraging your customers to introduce your brand to their friends, colleagues, and family members by offering perks or incentives is a marketing tactic that has been used for ages.

Referral programs create brand advocates out of happy and loyal customers and can earn you new customers who already have a positive perception of your brand. To start your own referral program, you can use referral tools like ReferralCandy.

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In conclusion: Brand awareness is vital in growing your brand and there are multiple steps you can take to increase it.

Effective brand awareness strategies and campaigns can bring your brand to the forefront of your customers’ minds.

Create powerful visual content to support your campaigns and increase brand awareness with Venngage’s Graphic Design Solutions for Marketing.