All you need to know about Branding and Brand Awareness

Branding has always been paramount in the overall growth of any organization. Small or large, local or global, your brand positioning dictates how successful you become in the future and the pace at which you do so. The longer a business exists in the market, the more phases of branding it goes through. Yes, the initial branding helps a brand create a space for itself in the target market, but positioning becomes one aspect. Maintaining it, nurturing it, and, if required rebranding, an organization is what branding is all about. 

The journey from an organization to a brand was quite extensive in the past. However, with the advent of social media and inbound marketing, every company has found a level playing field. Using this article, we shed some light upon the significance of branding and understand why brand awareness matters for every organization in 2021. 

If you are a B2B business wondering that branding isn’t for you, think again. B2B or B2C branding is compulsory for every and all brands with a client or customer base. 

What is Brand Awareness? 

Do you own an organization? If yes, how well does your target market know about your brand? Well, if you know the answer to that, you have a good idea about brand awareness. Brand positioning and awareness play a critical role. 

• In simple terms, brand awareness refers to your brand’s reach in your market or beyond. It can also scale as the degree to which your brand is recognized. 
• Brand awareness plays a critical role in helping new brands expand into a target market. Dying brands also need a strong brand awareness strategy to reposition and reintroduce into the market. 
• The most go-to approach for creating brand awareness and building brand positioning is social media via digital branding. From Facebook pages to Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Snapchat, audiences of various niches, demography, and interests are available on social media. Thus, it becomes streamlined for marketers to develop more realistic and qualified brand awareness campaigns that bring about results. 
• The formula for brand awareness is simple. The more your brand is visible, the more your audience learns about it. However, beyond awareness, it is important to account for brand positioning. Going through some business name ideas to pick something interesting can also help you with initial brand awareness. 

Importance of Brand Awareness 

Whether it’s getting ahead of your competition or creating a place for yourself in the market, a strategic branding plan can go a long way in helping brands grow. So, to say that branding is critical would be an understatement. 

• Digital branding, in many ways, has helped businesses across the globe position themselves with a personality. For example — when we say Bisleri, the world knows that it’s a bottled water brand. Similarly, with Loreal where our minds instantly connect with beauty products. 
• Developing a position in the minds of any audience required a strong brand awareness strategy. It allows a brand to connect with its audience, which in turn leads to sales and growth. 
• Talking specifically about digital branding, everything from your Instagram business idea name to your posts can define what you are. For example — an Instagram profile with posts dedicated to beverages will make an impression on the audience that your brand is about them. 
• In social media ads or digital marketing, you can only create a strong perception in your audience’s mind with a brand awareness campaign. 

How Digital Marketing plays a major role in Brand Awareness

Digital Marketing is an integral part of branding. From deciding business name ideas to capitalizing on the target audience, digital marketing becomes necessary for any business. 

• Relatively new but significant, digital marketing helps businesses with a fast-paced plan to reach the right audience and create awareness. 
• Every demographic of the audience is online, finding something on Google or swiping through social media posts. So, digital marketing becomes the perfect platform to reach these people. In other ways, make the audience aware of your brand. 
• Now, saying digital marketing can help in increasing brand awareness can be vague. A sound digital branding strategy will be focused and use only the most necessary platforms to expand reach. For example, a B2B business can manufacturers Compressors for Air Conditioning can create its presence via search engines, Twitter, and LinkedIn. However, an Air Conditioning brand being B2C has to be omnipresent on various social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter among others. 
• Brand awareness expands when you reach more audiences, and there is no other place than digital media where all types of audiences are available. In a nutshell, your new brand can instantly be a global phenomenon with Digital marketing. 

How To Create Brand Awareness 

There are a few fundamental aspects of branding that can help any business elevate from nothing to something. Also important is that at the center of every brand awareness strategy is digital marketing. 

• As a marketer, you have to understand the company’s goal. How do you want people to perceive your brand? For example, a kids’ clothing brand has to be fun, joyful, and bubbly. Whereas, a Suite manufacturer has to portray class and elegance. 
• One must also keep in mind the target audience. Only, when you know who you target can you design strategies that fit seamlessly into your audience’s lifestyle. 
• Consistency is key. Whether it is associating yourself with a color or font. The more consistent you are, the more people recognize and start associating. 
• Use social media to market and remarket. The more visible and persistent you are, the more impressions you can create. 

Things to keep in mind while creating a brand awareness campaign

Here are some quick aspects that you can check when planning your brand awareness campaign. 

• Create a customer persona to try to understand where you are trying to go. What is your reach? 
• What are the best social media platforms you can use? Tip — you cannot use all. 
• Always have your budgetary limitations in the back of your mind. 
• Use tracking codes to track every impression, click, or action. You can use it to learn and improve.
• Always test your plans with A/B testing. Simple tests like which color gets more attraction or subtle change in patterns can bring significant results. 

Example of a Good brand awareness campaign

A good example of a brand awareness campaign can be the digital campaign by Coke. The company ran a comprehensive hashtag across the globe with a message to share and care for each other. The #ShareACoke trended to number one on many social media platforms, including Twitter and people shared a ton of stories using this hashtag. If you ask how to message brand awareness? The reach and talk about the hashtag across the globe indicated the massive awareness it created for Coke. 

Social media has become a creative hub for brands that use innovative ways to express themselves and gain massive results. 

As a marketer, one of your primary jobs is to create a sound brand presence. This means using everything from native advertising to digital marketing to shape your brand.