Brand awareness refers to how familiar your target audience is with your brand and market offerings. If you aren’t familiar with what it is or why it matters, we’ve written more on the topic here.
In short, brand awareness is at the top of the marketing funnel and is crucial for growing any business. In 2022, it requires more than simple Instagram content and ad campaigns to increase your brand awareness.
Keep reading to learn 5 tactics to increase your brand awareness in 2022.
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Be Human & Establish a Brand Identity, Voice, and Personality
The first step to building brand awareness is to be a person, not a company. Humans run businesses and humans buy the products, so the importance of the human element cannot be overstated. To create a subconscious and emotional connection with your audience, you need to provide messaging that allows them to connect with your brand on a human level.
This is where clarifying your brand identity comes into play. Whether conscious or not, your brand already has an identity, so it is important to make sure it’s the one you want! Even if you didn’t invest in any brand-building efforts, “boring” is still an identity that customers can associate with your brand.
The three main steps to building your identity are to define:
- Your Purpose: why does your brand exist and/or make the products that it does?
- Your Personality: how your brand portrays itself and conveys its messages – Fun? Serious? Formal? Informal?
- Your Promise: what is your unique value proposition and what needs do you solve?
Establishing these factors sets the stage for your brand’s imagery (logo, design, brand colours), tone-of-voice for messaging, how your brand interacts with your audience (offline and online), and your brand’s associations.
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Leverage Multimedia to the Fullest
Most consumers research products online prior to purchase. Businesses need to accommodate this reality and optimise their social media and website to ensure that they leave a positive impression.
In 2022, it is not enough to just take a product photo and post it on socials; rather, brands need to leverage multimedia assets to the fullest. This means implementing video, interactive content, gamification, podcasts and personalised copy created a richer digital experience. Using the broad suite of multimedia tools also allows your brand to showcase its personality.
Video marketing is especially useful in showcasing your offerings, particularly complex or expensive products. It is also useful for brand storytelling as videos can be overlaid with meaningful music to set the mood. Importantly, in the era of YouTube, TikTok, and Reels, most consumers expect video content from brands.
Looking for more innovative ways to showcase your brand story across mediums? Check out our free eBook “2022 Guide to Audience Engagement”
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Create Partnerships and Collaborations
Brands can also turn to their partners to unlock opportunities for building brand awareness. Leveraging partnerships allows brands to enter new markets or find innovative ways to reach their target audience through a different avenue. Partnerships and collaborations also help boost brand identity by creating an association between brands and sentiment.
One example of the power of collaboration is Comwire IT and their partnership with the North Melbourne Football Club (NMFC). Comwire IT is in the business of managed IT and cloud systems; by sponsoring a football club, they can talk to their audience in a new way, focusing on brand awareness rather than hard sales. To enrich this relationship, Comwire IT launched digital activation during NMFC’s North Network lunchtime event. Using the Komo platform, Comwire IT provided NMFC fans with fun games about the club and great, relevant prizes. This creative collaboration was a success; Comwire IT achieved an engagement rate of 66% and an email opt-in rate of 59%!
Read the Case Study: How Comwire IT and NMFC Achieved a 66% Engagement Rate and Generated Leads
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Offer Freemiums, Free Content, and Trials
Freemiums, free content, and trials allow your customers to better understand what your company does and your brand’s value proposition. This boosts brand awareness by providing a tangible benefit to customers and helps educate them on your market offerings.
Importantly, freemiums, free content, demos, and trials often lead to a purchase and can cost less as a marketing tool than other channels. Studies have shown that consumers overvalue free products and derive happiness from the “gift” of a free product. If freemiums are not suitable for your business model, perhaps consider digital coupons? Much like free content, they are a proven tactic build brand, drive foot traffic and boost sales.
Read more: How to Use Digital Coupons to Drive Foot Traffic and Sales.
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Holding and Sponsoring Events
Hosting and sponsoring events is a tried-and-true method for reaching your target audience. Think back to the last live event or concert you went to – there is a good chance you saw on the signage or arena a major brand name. This is a huge way to boost brand awareness to a large and diverse audience.
This method is a great way to create a more meaningful brand experience above and beyond the basic product and/or service. Immersing your target audience in engaging brand experiences leaves an impact on your target customer, making your brand (and by extension your products and services) more memorable when they’re looking to purchase from your category.
One great example of this is from Red Bull. Whilst their core product is a beverage, they position the brand as an “extreme” drink that “gives you wings.” In line with this narrative, they host extreme sports events that boost their brand awareness and build a deep connection with their community.
Similarly, Murdoch University hosted digital activation during the SoundOn music festival to boost brand awareness amongst high school students and incoming/current university students. During SoundOn, Murdoch launched a Live Trivia between sets that included some amazing prizes to encourage engagement and connected the Live Trivia to the big screens to showcase their brand to the entire audience. This digital activation had a 30% engagement rate, generated over 1,000 new leads, and boosted Murdoch University’s brand association with down-to-earth and youthful themes,
Read More: Digitally Engaging 30% of the Live Audience with Murdoch University
Use Komo’s Audience Engagement Tools To Increase Brand Awareness
Komo’s large suite of gamification and audience engagement tools offer businesses a creative way to build brand awareness. As the one-stop shop for content, Komo’s Engagement Hub provides an easy digital destination to delight and engage your audience - no matter where they are. Whether your audience is in-stadium, at a concert, on social media, or over broadcast, Komo helps you talk to your audience and forge deeper customer-brand relationships. Importantly, the data tools embedded in Komo’s engagement tools allow you to derive useful insights about your customers, allowing you to continually improve your engagement strategies to build top-of-mind brand awareness.
