The Top Challenges When It Comes to Raising Brand Awareness
What are the factors affecting brand awareness? How do you get the word out about your company while protecting your reputation and meeting expectations of current customers?
Deloitte’s 2021 Marketing Trends Report sought feedback from 2,447 global consumers over 18 and 405 C-suite executives. A mere 35% of executives were confident in how people see their brands, a 20% drop since the pandemic started. Raising brand awareness is important, but the way people see your company matters more.
What challenges do you face when raising brand awareness? Here are a few ways to overcome them.
1. Improve Search Result Rankings
Smaller companies don’t have the budget to buy a lot of SEO ad placement or invest in the highest paid specialists. You may be your own optimization expert. If you don’t yet have a lot of content on your site, you may not show up in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for the keywords you’re targeting.
While the number one spot might be out of reach for now, you can certainly improve your SEO and rank higher. If you aren’t on the first page of SERPs, most people will never see your link. You can overcome this challenge by:
- Carefully choosing long keyword phrases that are relevant to your topic
- Sharing quality content on your website
- Studying your competition and how they rank as high as they do
SEO isn’t something you do once and forget. You must focus on building a site your target audience would want to visit and keep an eye on search engine algorithm changes.
2. Embrace Virtual Events
The pandemic forced a lot of businesses online that weren’t ready to be there. Many events have gone virtual. Promoting a digital event requires a different skillset.
However, you’ll also be able to reach customers you otherwise wouldn’t by utilizing highly targeted marketing on social media. To host a virtual event, keep these things in mind:
- Choose a platform your target audience is likely to understand. If your customers are baby boomers, you might do better with a Facebook live feed they can instantly access. Younger people are comfortable with Zoom and figuring out new technologies.
- Advertise your event to your target audience, narrowing your parameters to reach only those in your area or most likely to buy from you.
- Remove anything that doesn’t translate well in an online environment and replace it with something else.
Getting the hang of hosting virtual events takes a bit of time, but once you get going, you’ll see the many advantages of online networking.
3. Differentiate Your Biz
If you look at three businesses in the same industry, you’ll likely notice a lot of similarities. Every business should focus on excellent customer service and fair pricing. If you want to stand out from other brands, you must figure out what your unique value proposition (UVP) is.
- Check out your competitors’ UVPs. What is something you excel at that they do not?
- Make sure your UVP is something your customers care about. How does it benefit them?
Finding your UVP may take time, so don’t rush the process. You may even need to develop something to differentiate your company from others.
4. Finding Your Audience
Figuring out where to reach your customers is the best way to raise brand awareness. Some say people must see your company name and message at least seven times before they remember it. With so many companies online and so much noise, it’s hard to say just how many times consumers must see your ad before they act.
You need to reach your buyers in multiple ways to make enough impressions to stand out. Here’s how to start:
- Create a buyer persona, so you know who your customers are.
- Make a list of possible places they might see your message, both online and offline.
- Find the right social media platform. For example, approximately 20% of people use TikTok to view videos. The crowd over there is a bit younger, though.
Once you have an idea where your audience spends most of their time, go ahead and create content that makes sense for each platform.
5. Overcome Low Engagement
Another problem brands often run into is low engagement with their ads. You put what you think is an excellent campaign out there, but people just ignore it. No one comes to your website or takes advantage of an offer.
How can you overcome low engagement?
- Tap into user emotions. What pain point drives them to your type of business for a solution? What emotions are behind the pain point?
- Offer a reward if they participate. Run a contest with entries if they share your social media posts or get them sharing how they use your product.
- Ask for their help. People love to share info on brands they love, so ask your current fans to get some buzz going.
If what you’re doing isn’t working, then it’s time to try some new tactics. Keep in mind what works in person may not work online, however, you should still mesh the two so users interact in both real life and virtual.
6. Be Consistent
One way to overcome lack of brand awareness is to present a consistent message every time users encounter you. Not only will the words start to stick in their minds, but you’ll seem more trustworthy and transparent.
Branding should permeate your marketing efforts and get to the core of who you are as a brand. Approach every opportunity as a chance to improve your image and recognizability.
