Building Brand Awareness

This is a blog I wrote two years ago about building brand awareness from the nonprofit perspective. I thought I’d repurpose it from a business perspective. Branding is important no matter the circumstances.

The Internet is a noisy place. There are approximately 4.33 billion active Internet users around the world.  These users visit the approximately 1.7 billion websites that exist on the Internet today.  Experts project that digital advertising expenditures in the United States will increase by approximately 85 percent by 2023, from 108 to 201 billion dollars.

All of this to say that when you are building a brand, it can be difficult to break through the cacophony of content, conversations, and promotion appearing on digital feeds. How does any new brand reach their intended audience and stand out from the crowd?

What is Brand?

A brand is that feeling you get when you think of a product or service. A brand is a company’s reputation. It is a complete 360-degree view of a business, including mission, vision, values, culture, product, people, and style. A good brand is a consistent entity that customers, employees, vendors, partners, and stakeholders can rely on.

The Importance of Brand

You can see how important branding is to any business. Building a brand can take years, even decades, but it can also take much less time to be weakened. A brand is never “done”,  nor is it invulnerable. Brand building is an ongoing process. A brand must be built on a solid foundation, and then protected every day.  

Building Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is job number one when building a brand. When your target audience can name and describe your brand without prompting, you’ve most likely won their loyalty and engagement. Smart brand managers search for fresh new ideas to build brand awareness in their digital marketing strategies.  The goal is to build awareness and then remain top-of-mind with existing customers. Fortunately, the digital world in constantly evolving and changing, so there are plenty of new opportunities to discover.  

The EPO Model

When planning your digital brand strategy, it’s helpful to think in terms of the Earned, Paid and Owned Media Model (EPO).

Owned Media

Owned media are digital channels your company creates and/or controls.  This includes your website, blog sites, email campaigns, e-newsletters, and social media channels.  These channels are effective because you control the content and the implementation, as well as the budget.  Here are some branding ideas to consider:

1. Create a closed Facebook or Twitter group to engage with loyal customers and collect stories, suggestions, questions and other insights. This will garner helpful insights on how best to communicate your brand message to those who aren’t familiar with it.  
2. Generate and offer free usable content on your website or in an email campaign to broaden awareness of your brand (i.e. infographics, e-books, or impact reports). Make sure to collect emails for future messaging. This is the most common use of content marketing.

Earned Media

Earned media happens when external sources (i.e. customers, influencers, and social media followers) organically share your content, speak about your company, or otherwise talk about your organization either online or in person.  In the age of influencer marketing and online review sites, earned media on digital channels can be incredibly impactful. Consider these ideas:

1. Encourage deliberate online sharing of your products or services (i.e. “I love PRODUCT NAME ” social media badges or sharing buttons on all digital platforms and in emails) using your memorable hashtags.
2. Don’t just limit your media outreach to print, broadcast and radio outlets. These days, many people consumer their news online. Develop relationships with targeted digital sources as well. The traditional media companies often employ digital reporters for their online properties and there are other media companies that are completely digital. Other news sources include blogs, social media channels and podcasts.

Paid Media

Paid media occurs when you pay for marketing or advertising. In the digital ream, this includes search engine marketing, retargeting, affiliate marketing, social media ads, and sponsored content.  When considering paid media, remember that branding is a marathon, not a sprint. Consistency and repetition is key. If you don’t have the budget for that, don’t waste your money. Here are some ideas on how to be strategic with paid media.

1. Engage a new audience with social media lookalike ad targeting tools. You can use existing followers as your base or use social listening to discover new targets. For example, our organization could use the 51,000 followers on your Facebook page as the base, target Facebook users who “look like” the demographics of our existing followers (age, location, income, interests) and serve them targeted holiday ads.
2. Have you ever had an ad follow you around the Internet? You clicked on a pair of shoes on the Zappos website and now that same pair of shoes shows up when you open Google or Facebook or your local news website? That’s retargeting. Retargeting is an effective brand building tool that is based on the Rule of Seven. This rule claims that it takes an average of seven impressions of a brand to convert. The more a person sees a pair of shoes, the more likely they are to decide to buy them. Retargeting requires placing a pixel or cookie on a viewer’s browser when they visit your website. That pixel is then tracked as the viewer leaves your site and browses other pages. An ad is served to that viewer on any site that is in your ad campaign’s network. As with any branding effort, retargeting takes time. Don’t expect immediate results

The EPO digital marketing model uses a holistic and integrated approach but that doesn’t mean you should be an expert in every area. Choose your methods wisely. No matter which of these new ideas you choose, make sure to calculate your expected ROI and keep track of your results. There is no reason to spend time and resources on an idea that doesn’t deliver. The consequences are too costly.

I would love to help you build your brand. Contact me today so we can get started.