How to Build Brand Awareness for your Business

Regardless of the type of business you run, be it a traditional, brick-and-mortar shop, a freelance graphic design business, or an online-only operation, you’ll at some point need to focus on building brand awareness.

Ideally, you should start thinking about this long before you launch your new venture, as this will give you the best possible chance of picking up the customers and turning your project into a successful business. But, with that being said, it’s never too late to start!

I’ve been doing freelance graphic design for around 5 years at this point, as well as working at a social media agency, so I have a fair bit of experience when it comes to working on and building brand awareness for businesses in a whole range of industries.

I understand that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people out there all claiming to have the secret to instant brand growth and success. But the honest truth is that there is no special, one-size-fits-all formula that we can call upon. Every business and every brand and every audience is different, and as such will all require unique strategies.

However, with that being said, there are a few things that you can start doing right now to help you kick-start your brand awareness journey.

But, before we get into these, let’s take a quick look at the definition of brand awareness…

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness is how your customers recognise and remember your business and brand. The more time you spend on building this brand awareness, the more your audience will be familiar with your logo, messaging, and products.

You should keep in mind that brand awareness and marketing strategy are not the same thing. This is something that a lot of people, especially new business owners, get confused with when first starting out. Brand awareness is the overarching term to define how aware and informed people are about your brand.

Is Brand Awareness actually important?

Yes, it is.

Brand awareness is important because it allows your audience, customers, and potential customers, to understand, recall, and become comfortable with your brand’s messaging, products, and imagery. The more time you spend working on brand awareness, the stronger this sense of understanding will be in your audience.

Think about any large brand, Apple for example. Without thinking too hard, you likely understand their values, the imagery they use, and what you’re likely to expect from them as a business. You know all this because they’ve carefully crafted their brand awareness, from the very beginning, right up to now.

How to Build Brand Awareness Online

There are plenty of ways you can start to build brand awareness right now, all from the comfort of your home. It’s no secret that all businesses need an online presence, be that a website, social media accounts, or anything else.

You should be making the most of every digital asset that you have access to. The more high-quality content that you produce, the stronger your brand awareness will be.

So, let’s look at some methods you can use to build awareness…

Start a Blog

If you have a website, you should also have a blog. A blog, when done correctly, can achieve several things for your business.

It can help to establish yourself as an expert in your industry, it can provide expanded information on your products and services, plus it can help get your website in front of new people, through the wonders of SEO.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is essentially how sites like Google and Bing determine how high your website should rank in their search results pages. It boils down to this: The more relevant your content is, the higher it will rank in search engines. The more results pages your website appears in, he more people are likely to see it.

SEO is quite a broad subject, so check this out if you want to learn more. And, if you’re having trouble coming up with topics to write about on your blog, here are Seven Topics to get you started.

If you’re worried about a blog taking up too much of your time, you can even work in advance, and get a month’s worth of content created in a few hours. Here’s how I stay on top of my schedule.

Write Guest Posts on Other Blogs

SEO will take a while to build. This is the case with any organic marketing. But one way that you can quickly pull in the views is by writing guest blogs for other businesses within your industry.

You might see this as a lot of work for little payoff, but the rewards can be huge. By writing high-quality content for another blog, you can make the most of their already established audience before you’ve built your own.

By including a link to your own blog at the end of the article, you can ensure the readers know who you are, and know where to go for similar content. In the SEO world, these are known as backlinks. If the blog you’re writing for has a good domain authority, the backlinks can work wonders for your SEO ranking.

Create Infographics

Sharable infographics can be huge for building brand awareness. In 2022, shares are one of the best ways to get a whole group of people, external to your existing audience, to see your content. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter favours shareable content.

And few things are more sharable than content-rich infographics. These are visually engaging, easy to consume and more exciting than a standard blog article. By creating a full infographic for your blog, then cutting it up into smaller chunks for social media, you can entice people to visit your website to see the full thing.

If you need help with creating infographics, or just want some general guidance, I’m here to help!

Maximise Your Organic Social Media

We looked at the important role social media shares play when it comes to building brand awareness, so it should come as no surprise that I’m mentioning social media again.

As a brand, you need to be making the most of every available avenue you have at your disposal. By spending some time creating high-quality content for places like Instagram and Pinterest, you can start to organically grow your accounts, which will get them seen by more people.

By including plenty of Calls to Action (CTAs) you can ensure that your social media audience is also viewing your website.

To give you an example, I’m a freelance graphic designer, so I use my social media channels to promote my design work, in the form of regularly created posters.

Start a Podcast

It might seem like a lot of work, but it really isn’t! All you need is a good mic and a spare few hours each month to build a successful podcast.

You don’t need to just speak about your products and services either. If you want people to listen, you need to provide them with content that adds value to their lives. This is the same for all content you create.

For example, one way you can do this is by interviewing people within your industry. Are you a photographer? Interview other photographers to get a peek behind the curtain of how they work. When you promote interview episodes on social media, make sure to tag the interviewee’s account and ask them to share the post. This is a win-win for you both!

Planning a podcast episode is very straightforward, and everything you need to know is in this handy guide! And, there’s even a free planning template in there for you too: Why You NEED to Plan Your Podcast Episodes.

Offer Freebies

Believe it or not, giving things away for free is very good for your business! It may sound counter-intuitive, but giving away products (be them digital or physical) can be huge for building brand awareness. Why is this?

It’s because people will be more likely to come back once you’ve given them something for free. For example, if you sell coffee, and run a promotion where your audience can get a free sample, those who like it will likely return to make a purchase.

Personally, I don’t sell anything physical, so I give away templates, wallpapers, social kits and more, all for free! You can see the (growing) collection of freebies here.

Conclusion

The above is by no means an exhaustive list of the many ways you can build up brand awareness for your business. As with anything, the more time you spend working on it, the stronger your brand awareness will be, and the more you’ll master the content creation process.

If you’re not sure where to start, or want someone to lend a helping hand in getting your business to the next level, I’m just a few clicks away!

Feel free to drop me a message via the contact page, or email at samueljstroud@gmail.com, and I’ll see how I can help!

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