How many people are aware that your brand exists? When they see a logo or come across a social post of your company, do they recognize it? Every marketer dreams that the majority of their target audience will know who they are. Not all who recognize your company are customers, but brand recognition is key to getting the word about your brand out there. Part of this process is to create a branding strategy that works. 

Brand recognition is the number one priority for 45% of businesses today. Branding includes everything from creating to managing your business’ presence, voice, and identity. It’s all about building relationships with your target audience and making them loyal to your business. 

If you want to up our game and make your brand more recognized, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll teach you why this matters and how you can improve your branding strategy.

Why is brand awareness important?

Every day, people in your target audience come across or are contacted by hundreds of different companies. Brands are all over social media, on the TV, on billboards on their way to work, in conversation with others, etc. 

Only a few of these many brands mentioned in a person’s life will attract their attention or become a company they want to buy from. It’s no wonder - they have so many to choose from and no time or patience to research every company they come across. 

If you want your brand to be chosen by the target audience, you need to stand out. You need to make people aware of your brand and make them trust it. The Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report shows that 81% of consumers in the world buy only from brands they trust. 

Brand recognition is a thing that unravels as you succeed. The more people recognize your business, the more they talk about it. Who today doesn’t know of the brand Coca-Cola, for example? Even people who’ve never worn Nike know about the brand and those in countries without Mcdonald's know about the BigMac. 

That’s a result of good branding strategies. 

Ways to improve your branding strategy

Now that you know how vital this can be for your business’s success, let’s get to action. Here are the top ways to improve your branding strategy today:

• Research your customer with brand intelligence tools

• Optimize your email marketing strategy

• Offer brand consistency across all marketing platforms

• Create shareable content

• Encourage and use feedback for your brand

• Maintain a high level of transparency

• Contribute to the community

Let’s delve into the details now:

1. Research your customer with brand intelligence tools

You can’t fix something you know nothing about. Before you even start working on brand awareness, you need to know how people perceive your brand. The first step is always to determine how your business is coming across and what people expect of it. 

By researching your audience with top brand intelligence tools, you can find the flaws in your current branding strategy and fix them. Intelligence software will provide you with real-time insights and tell you what your brand looks like to the consumer - as well as how to make it look better. 

The process is very simple with the right tool. Attest can provide you with market research surveys, allow you to monitor your social channels, and listen on the Web for information you can use for your branding strategy. With access to 125 million consumers across 58 countries, you’ll get the most trustworthy insights into AI-generated reports. 

2. Optimize your email marketing strategy

On average, there are 306.4 billion emails sent every day. Marketers are well-aware of these numbers, so the majority of them jump at the opportunity to use email as a channel for generating more leads. Knowing this, if you want to improve your branding strategy, you need to improve your email marketing strategy first. 

Since you’ll be reaching many of your targeted audience with your emails, this is the perfect medium for making them more aware and trusting in your brand. A good email marketing tool like Mailchimp can make this very simple. But, if you are looking for something simpler and more affordable, there are also some great MailChimp alternatives for startups to consider. 

Flodesk covers all the shortcomings of Mailchimp. It is much simpler to use, so it saves a lot of time. It doesn’t scale up the cost as your subscribers’ list grows. And, it has some of the most immersive forms and stunning templates you can tweak in minutes to fit your brand’s image.2.

3. Communicate your brand values to your audience

Brands now have the unique opportunity to amplify their core values to their audience through digital communication channels. One approach for brand communication is investing in events that express the company's central message. By hosting relevant and targeted activations, brands can highlight why they matter and demonstrate what it means to stand behind their purpose. Make sure you prepare for the event properly and plan everything ahead to carry it out successfully. If you are planning to represent your company or product, you will need excellent communication and public speaking skills as a bad presentation will harm your brand's reputation. Participating in presentation and public speaking training programs like professional coaching for Ted Talks, you will learn how to create engaging stories, capture your audience's attention, promote long-term relationships with customers, and grow loyal customer bases.

Brand consistency is all about making sure that your messaging, image, and brand values are consistent across all channels you are using. While you’ll need to tweak your content to fit the social platform you post on, you still need to insert features that brand your business in a unique, recognizable way. 

Consistent presentation of a brand is known to increase its revenue by 33%. It’s not just about having a social presence or frequently posting on your website’s blog. It’s about creating a message that consumers will see and think: “Hey, this is the X brand”. 

According to WebFX, 90% of consumers will expect a similar experience across all marketing channels of the brands they are using. Are you offering them this now?

To achieve brand consistency, there are 2 things that you must be doing:

• Consistent messaging. Find a brand voice that you’ll use to share information with your consumers. Use it in all your posts and conversations and across all channels from your website to your Facebook profile. 

• Consistent visual identity. People recognize brands thanks to visualization. Create a logo that people will see and think of your brand, use a color palette that’s unmistakable yours, and create a tagline that sticks. Take, for example, Nike's slogan: ‘Just Do It’. It’s so simple and yet, even though it doesn’t include the brand’s name, just hearing it makes you think of Nike. 

4. Create shareable content

No one can say for certain what will go viral. It would be very easy if we could, right? While most of your content won’t be shared by thousands of people, it only takes one great piece to make your brand recognized by thousands of new people. 

That being said, if you want to make your brand recognized, you need content that will trigger word of mouth. Create content that offers value and engages people to share it. Make sure they can do it - add a call to action that suggests this or add a social sharing button to your website posts. 

It's also crucial to recognize the value of using different types of content to enhance your brand's presence. Don't underestimate the importance of incorporating video content, as it has become a dynamic and engaging medium for reaching audiences. To further improve branding and accessibility, consider learning how to transcribe audio from your videos, making your content more inclusive and search-engine friendly. By combining these approaches, your social media efforts can yield a more comprehensive and impactful presence, driving better results for your brand

5. Encourage and use feedback for your brand

Jeff Bezos once said: “A brand is what other people say about you when you’re out of the room”. 

The feedback of your customers can be used in two ways:

• It can show you how your brand is perceived and recognized

• It can show you how to improve your brand’s image and reputation

Customer testimonials aren’t there solely to benefit other consumers. They are there to help you improve on your mistakes, too. So, read customer testimonials to find out how well your branding strategy is working, what they think of your brand, and what they dislike. Then, work on your brand values based on what you find. 

6. Maintain a high level of transparency 

According to BBG, 94% of consumers stay loyal to transparent brands. They love companies that are honest and straightforward. Customers are not as blindly trusting as before, especially now when the competition is so big and fraudsters are all around. 

If you want people to recognize your brand, you need to link it to trust. People trust a brand that is realistic, honest, and transparent. In your branding strategy, talk about where you source your materials, how you make your products, who your employees are, and what they do. People want to know what happens behind closed doors. 

7. Contribute to the community

Over 64% of consumers will trust a brand more if it contributes to the community and ‘take a stance’. If you want people to trust and value your brand, you need to show them that you care. This can be as grand as sponsoring a big event, but it can also be small gestures like a few hours volunteering in your business’ hometown. 

Ready to make people recognize your brand?

Branding is a critical part of any business. It is what forms a link between your brand and its target audience, helping them identify your products and services. With the right branding strategy and tools in your arsenal, you can turn your business into a company that people immediately recognize, trust, and buy from. 

Author bio

Nadica Metuleva is a freelance writer who’s passionate about creating quality, original content. She holds a Master’s degree in English teaching and a Bachelor’s degree in translation. With 8 years of experience in the freelance writing industry, Nadica has become proficient in creating content that captivates the audience, drives growth, and educates. You can find her on LinkedIn.