Are you wondering why your new competitor’s company is seeing a crazy number of conversions? Does your company have a few repeat customers but is struggling to gain new ones? You might just need to increase your brand’s visibility.
There isn’t a single secret to helping grow your visibility—there’re actually several! We’re going to tell you how you can use the internet to improve customer’s awareness of your brand and increase the overall visibility of your company. Keep reading for more information!
The Importance of Brand Awareness
Brand awareness comes from brand visibility (which differs from online visibility). The more visible your company is, the more people begin to associate your brand with your product/service. When people become aware of your brand because of their online visibility, they are more capable of comparing and differentiating your brand.
This means that when a person looks at two similar products at a similar price point, they’re more likely to choose your company over the competition because they know, or know of, your brand. Basically, brand visibility leads to brand awareness which leads to trust, and ultimately more conversions.
Social Media
There are more than 3.8 billion social media users and that number is growing every day! With that said, social media is one of the most important tools you can use to increase your brand’s visibility.
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to figure out each platform’s algorithms that allow your posts to be seen organically and consistently. You may be able to guess at a few of the more important pieces of the puzzle, such as the number of posts per week or when your followers are active, but you could also miss your mark entirely.
You can also opt to pay for your ads to run but doing this leaves a few other unknown details in the equation which could mean simply wasting money.
Instead of guessing, trial, and error, or hoping for the best, it may be in your best interest to hire a social media marketing agency. An agency can work with you to help plan your social media posts and advertising strategy to give you the biggest bang for your buck. They also remove all of the guesswork from the various platforms, leaving you time to focus on more important things.
Optimize Your Blog
Blogging is crucial for your website because it can help your brand be found and noticed. One of the ways this can happen is through the use of search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is basically how your website is found when people search for terms and phrases that are related to your company/industry. Typically, this is done through the use of keywords, proper linking, and having domain authority.
One of the easiest ways to incorporate keywords and proper linking is by publishing blog content. Ideally, this content will be a mixture of infographics, informative articles, and even videos. The goal is to help your website rank onto the first page of search engine results pages as well as to have content that people want to share with their friends via social media and email.
Using search engine optimization means that people can find you even when they’re not looking specifically for you which will automatically help your brand be seen.
Partnering With Influencers
You don’t need to partner with Kim Kardashian or other high-end names in order to get your brand in front of an audience. Instead of looking for one big name to promote your brand, you might look for influencers with smaller niche audiences.
You’ll want to look for an influencer that may have ties to your industry or would be a good fit for your product; you’ll also want to make sure that they’re an actual influencer with real followers. Influencer often has loyal fans who place weight on their opinions.
What we’re saying is that a micro-influencer (someone with 1000+ followers) who wants to advocate for your brand is going to be less expensive than a bigger name yet still work hard to promote your company.
Give Customers a Taste
The goal with brand visibility is to help people see your brand; this can happen by paid advertisements or more organically through shares on social media and word-of-mouth. While paid advertisements are great, increasing your visibility organically means that people are more likely to remember your product, seek your brand out, and convert.
One way to get people talking about and sharing your brand is by offering them a sample of your product/service. Depending on what your company offers, you might offer a travel-sized sample or a month-long trial membership.
This ‘taste’ of your product/service will allow customers to experience what they’ve been missing and entice them to purchase the full-size product or paid membership. Additionally, it’s far easier for someone to tell their friends, “try this, I love it, you will too,” when they’ve actually been able to use whatever it is you’re selling.
Remember: you don’t have to offer free samples or trial memberships for the longevity of your company. You can offer the sample/trial for a set period of time, get people talking, build your brand’s visibility, and then do away with this aspect of your marketing if you wish.
Referral Programs
Continuing with the word-of-mouth advertising to help build your brand’s visibility: referral programs! These programs give satisfied customers some type of incentive to tell their friends about your brand.
You don’t have to go crazy with the incentives, either. You can offer an existing customer 15-20% off when they refer a friend who makes a purchase. It’s also nice to give that new customer a little discount as an incentive. So one happy customer turns into two customers and those two customers can continue referring as they please, with the goal of multiple referrals from several sources.
The key to a successful referral program is to actually track referrals and reward those who do so; if you fail to reward these referrals, you might end up with a marketing nightmare. There are several tracking options available, from using a manual spreadsheet to automatic coupon codes; the method you choose will vary based on your budget and how quickly you anticipate your program to grow.
The Takeaway
In case you haven’t noticed, brand visibility and awareness centers around people remembering and talking about your company/products/service. The key to successfully increasing brand awareness isn’t necessarily a one-stop-shop, it is incorporating several marketing aspects into your visibility campaign.
This doesn’t mean that you have to use every single tip outlined here (although it couldn’t hurt), but instead, you may choose to focus on 2-3 aspects in order to really help your company be seen, recognized, remembered, and used.
If you’re not sure which tips are best for your brand, consider consulting with a marketing professional or simply trying your hand at a few of them, allowing each one enough time to flourish!
