Whether it’s McDonald’s golden arches or the “Share a Coke” campaign, a strong brand is instantly recognisable. Brand awareness is all about creating a consistent image, understanding your audience, and making your brand stand out. Throughout this blog, we’ll discuss why brand visibility matters and the key factors that can help build your brand awareness.
What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness is defined as the extent to which customers can recall or recognise a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is typically assessed through four distinct stages: recognition, recall, top-of-mind awareness, and brand preference. The recognition level indicates that the consumer has seen the brand before and knows what it is. At the recall level, the consumer can remember the brand, but only when they see it. The Top-of-Mind level indicates that the consumer thinks of the brand first when considering a specific product or service. Finally, the Brand Preference level suggests that the consumer prefers the brand over similar brands.
What are some challenges businesses face when trying to improve brand awareness?
Building brand awareness isn’t always a straightforward process, and many businesses think they can simply choose an identity that fits their aesthetic and call it a day. However, there’s much more that goes into a brand’s identity, and it all starts by defining the target audience. Businesses must identify and understand their ideal customers, ensuring that their messaging and marketing efforts align with these customers’ needs.
When defining and reaching your audience, consider the potential impact of change on your brand. Market trends and audience preferences can change rapidly, so your business must adapt its strategies and messaging accordingly. Instagram is a perfect example of a brand that took on this challenge correctly…
It started as a photo-sharing app with nostalgic features, but eventually shifted away from focusing solely on still images due to the rise in popularity of other video-sharing platforms, such as Snapchat. With influencer and brand culture rapidly growing, Instagram rebranded as a global platform for entertainment and commerce, encouraging content creation and storytelling.
One of the final challenges we will discuss is maintaining consistency across all channels.
Maintaining a consistent brand image and message is crucial for building trust and recognition with your audience. This process takes place behind the scenes and involves providing your team with brand guidelines and best practices for maintaining consistency.
How to overcome these challenges?
Defining Target Audience –Research, research, and more research. The best way to define your target audience is by communicating with them. Many businesses opt for using surveys, focus groups, or online analytics. This provides them with direct insights into attitudes, behaviours and preferences of potential customers. Surveys allow brands to define the ‘who’ and focus groups explain the ‘why’, resulting in a complete picture of your ideal customer.
Adapting to Change – To effectively adapt to change for brand awareness, you must continuously monitor and respond to feedback. This includes updating your social media presence, website and marketing strategies to reflect current trends and culture shifts. Many people don’t consider cultural sensitivity and localisation, which involves adapting your language and messaging to resonate with different audiences and respect different cultures.
Consistent Messaging – To remain consistent, you need a clear brand voice and messaging strategy that aligns with your overall brand identity and values. Without a strategy and joint understanding of brand goals and values, it would be impossible to remain consistent. A compelling narrative is a vital tool for communicating your brand’s purpose and mission.We have addressed the challenges businesses face in terms of brand awareness and provided practical ways to overcome them. We handpicked the points we thought were the most effective, but there are lots of ways to increase brand awareness that you can read about in our other blogs.
Ready to take the leap and start building a brand awareness strategy? Get in touch with TFA today.