Getting the word out about your brand requires perseverance and audience engagement. Consider how many times a day you read an ad, see a post on social media or hear something on the radio. Gaining brand recognition amidst a sea of marketing is challenging.
How can businesses get the word out without spending a fortune on promotions? Taking the time to understand what’s been done in your industry can help you come up with something fresh and new. Creative marketing campaigns can be inexpensive but highly effective at growing your brand name.
1. Create a Brand Style
It all starts by understanding your brand, who you are and what your customers expect. In a survey, companies stated they planned to increase research spending by about 18% in 2023. Whether you conduct the research via surveys and internal data or you pay a company to collect the details for you, knowing your audience helps you develop a brand style.
Once you have an idea of the colors that tap into emotions, your clients’ pain points and how best to brand your message, set up a style guide to ensure you present a consistent experience.
What tone of voice do you want to use in marketing? Find keywords that speak to who you are and what you do. Select a color palette. Lay out how your logo looks and which versions to use where.
The more consistency you create, the more easily people will recognize your name. Think about well-known companies. McDonald’s uses a certain golden yellow for their arches at every restaurant. Kids see it and want a Happy Meal. Tap into key indicators for your brand so people start to associate your company with those visuals and words.
2. Engage Your Audience
Brand recognition happens faster when you engage your audience and give them an experience. Think about the last time a local business hosted an event you enjoyed. You likely remember the brand name and what they offered.
Look for ways to engage your audience, whether in person or online. For example, you might host a seminar to educate people on an aspect of what you do. You could offer a social media contest where they share a photo and you choose a winner to receive something fun from your company.
Add a game, a video or animations to your site to pull visitors in and keep them enthused about spending time on your website.
3. Set a Budget
While building brand recognition is a crucial part of making your name more recognizable, you’ll want to set a budget for what you can afford to spend on marketing. Experts often recommend putting at least 15% of your earnings back into promotions.
Once you’ve spent your marketing budget, you’ll need to think up creative ways to continue getting the word out. Can you make some memes and post them on social media? Maybe your customers would share news about a new product in exchange for a discount.
In addition to ensuring you stay within reasonable spending limits for your company, a budget also forces you to be creative when the money runs out.
4. Find Influencers
Team up with a few influencers to help get the word out about your business. Look for people whose audience matches your customer base. If you sell golf balls, you might team up with a pro golfer with a large following on social media. Ask them to try your product for free and share their thoughts.
You may need to pay some influencers to gain their time and valuable insight. Crunch the numbers and figure out if the exposure is worth the cost. How many followers does the person have? Are their fans engaged enough to comment, share and even buy products the influencer talks about?
5. Tap Into Technology
You can stand out from every other company like yours by utilizing the latest technology. For example, you might add an augmented reality component to your online shopping experience. Brands such as IKEA already allow you to place a piece of virtual furniture in a room by pulling up your phone app and dropping it into place.
Virtual reality (VR) can give you a chance to create an immersive experience that gets people talking and attracts media attention. Imagine offering a new store opening and letting people around the world join into a metaverse environment via VR headsets.
6. Make Customers Feel Special
Do you want to create loyal customers who tell everyone they know about how great your brand is? Make them feel special by creating offers only for them. Have an exclusive insider club and invite them to special events or let them be the first to buy a desirable product.
Send them early-bird specials so they can save money when they order next. The goal of making your customers feel special and giving them an insider club is to bring more and more people into the fold.
When they get that email that there is an exclusive offer, they’ll be much more likely to buy from you. However, they also will tell family and friends they can join the club and save money and get deals first.
The free membership model works particularly well with e-commerce businesses selling clothing and items people tend to buy frequently.
7. Create a Brand Persona
You’ll find millions of brands on the market but your goal is to make yours unique in your category. One way of doing this is creating a strong brand persona.
Think of your company like a person. What kind of personality do you have? If you sell children’s toys, your persona might be light and funny. If you sell banking services, your persona may be serious and studious to gain consumer trust.
Think about what you’d want from a brand if you were the customer. Put yourself in their shoes. Once you’ve created some details about who your brand is, name it and use the persona in everything you do. Use it to create marketing campaigns and design your website.
Wendy’s does an excellent job creating a fun, snippy persona. On social media, they’re known for responding with snarky comments on people’s posts and sharing a few of their own about how they’re better than other burger joints.
People have come to expect the responses from Wendy’s and associate the modern, trendy and somewhat humorous tone with the brand.
Building Brand Recognition Takes Tie
Building brand recognition takes time and consistent effort. Apply these principles but be open to new, creative ways of getting the word out. Never turn down a decent opportunity to reach new customers. Use your name, logo and brand style guide in anything you put out. Over time, people will start to associate certain colors, styles and tone with your company and instantly recognize you.
Eleanor is editor of Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.
