What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear cold drinks? Most probably brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. These industry giants spend millions of dollars every year on building brand awareness. But, even if Coca-Cola is not your regular drink of choice, you can easily picture the red and white logo with the flowy Spencerian script.

So how does brand awareness benefit your brand? Brand awareness is a powerful tool to solidify your brand in the consumer’s mind. When it comes to making a purchasing decision, a consumer is likely to go for a brand they are familiar with. It plays a key role in ensuring that customers remember your brand and develop loyalty towards it.

The influence of brand awareness goes beyond purchasing decisions. Situated at the top of the marketing funnel, brand awareness attracts new audiences, generates leads, and boosts website traffic.

While Coca-Cola boasts one of the most impressive brandings, it is unlikely that smaller brands can emulate similar strategies. That’s because Coca-Cola has spent an average of 4 billion dollars in the past six years on advertising. And most companies, especially budding brands, don’t have access to that kind of a marketing budget.

But don’t let financial limitations hold back your brand awareness. Thanks to the internet and wide-reaching digital tools, you no longer have to depend on expensive traditional advertising to establish your brand.

In this post, we’re summarizing innovative brand awareness tips to take your brand to the next level. Let’s dive in.

1. Produce High-Quality Visual Content

With people’s shrinking attention span, you can’t rely solely on long-form blogs to generate brand awareness. Visual content is a lot more impactful and can help your brand attract new audiences. Embracing visual content is no longer a choice but rather a necessity to gain followers, engagement, and leads.

There are several ways a brand can create visual content for its target audience. If this is your first foray into producing visual content, you can start by creating detailed infographics. Incorporating images, graphs, and GIFs in blog posts also enhances readability.

Depending on your goals, you should create videos on YouTube, Story and Reels on Instagram, and of course, content for Gen Z-favorite TikTok.

2. Create Useful Guides and Tutorials for Your Target Audience

Brand awareness campaigns shouldn’t feel like you’re trying to push an agenda down the customer’s throat. Blatant promotion is too aggressive and can be annoying.

Instead, take a customer-centric approach that’s a lot more palatable. You can put the customer’s needs first by sharing useful guides and tutorials. Showing customers how to use your product or services in a creative way is the way to go.

YouTube tutorials, sharing mini-courses on relevant topics via email, and creating Instagram Guidebooks can help your brand reach broader audiences.

3. Don’t Forget About SEO

Search Engine Optimization is what makes your brand discoverable and increases website traffic. Therefore, every piece of content you’re creating should be optimized according to SEO best practices.

As we know, most users don’t bother looking past the first page of search results. So, when a customer searches for a term relevant to your brand, your business should pop up on the first page.

SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to work consistently, adopt the latest techniques, and track your progress to make your brand rank higher.

4. Think About Diversifying Your Content By exploring Different Formats

With the ever-rising popularity of social media and streaming platforms, blogs and videos are not the only channels to nurture brand awareness.

Did you know that 144 million Americans listen to podcasts? Starting your podcast is an easy and affordable way to tap into a new audience. In fact, platforms like Anchor allow people to start and distribute podcasts without spending a single penny.

5. Introduce a Referral Program

Referral programs continue to be a go-to brand awareness tool for many businesses. Incentivizing customers to refer your products to their friends and family is modern word-of-mouth marketing that’s worth considering.

6. Run Contests and Giveaways

Everyone loves a contest because there is nothing to lose and so much to gain. Running contests and giveaways on your social media accounts is a great way to engage with your followers and attract new ones.

Asking participants to share your posts or tag their friends will help you attract new customers.

7. Cultivate Better Engagement with Influencer Marketing

Influencers are to social media what Hollywood A-listers are to traditional advertising. But unlike mainstream celebrities, influencers have a direct and often deeper connection with their followers. This makes them a valuable asset for your brand awareness strategy.

There are many ways you can collaborate with influencers. You can pay them for sponsored content on their platform or partner with them on a new product.

For example, Dunkin’ Donuts partnered with Charli D’Amelio to create a signature drink called ‘The Charli.’ And fans of the TikTok star, who has over 115 million followers, rushed to try it out.

8. Make the Most of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the most underrated social media platforms. You’re missing out on a major opportunity if you’re not leveraging LinkedIn to enhance brand awareness.

You can use a LinkedIn lead generation strategy to build deeper relationships with customers and boost sales. Furthermore, posting high-quality content can help your brand become a credible authority in the industry.

9. Start Guest Posting on High-Traffic Blogs

Guest posting is a reliable way to further create an online presence for your brand. It’s crucial to ensure you are collaborating with the right blogs and posting well-researched content.

10. Support Social Causes (But with the Right Intention)

In today’s social and political climate, brands no longer have the privilege to stay neutral about important topics. As a brand, you need to take a stance and show your support.

However, there is a fine line between being genuinely supportive and hopping on the bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it.

The infamous Pepsi advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner placating police brutality with a can of cold drink is a great example of what brands should NOT do.

Just changing your icon into a rainbow for Pride Month or sharing a black square for the BLM movement is not enough. You need to back your support with tangible and valuable efforts. You can achieve this by amplifying social activists on your platforms or donating to important causes.

Final Thoughts

This is not an exhaustive list of ways to increase brand awareness, but these strategies are certainly worth exploring and implementing. Brand awareness strategies are feasible and necessary for businesses of all sizes. As mentioned above, there are a variety of ways you can make your brand stand out even on a tight marketing budget.

Stefan Smulders is a SaaS Entrepreneur | Bootstrapped to €3M ARR in just 1year | Founder of the world’s safest software for LinkedIn Automation Expandi.io | Vegan | Father