Recently I was asked to map out a campaign that focused only on brand awareness – not necessarily on selling a specific product or service. These are different from the ‘normal’ campaigns I create for my clients. Those are all about driving sales, but they are no less important to your overall business success. Here are 6 of my favourite ways to drive brand awareness.
Referral Marketing
Referral MarketingUnderstanding that almost 70% of buying decisions are influenced by a customer’s experience with your brand. What can you give to existing ‘raving fans’ that will encourage them to share your content and share their experience of working with you? Everyone wants to buy from someone whom everyone else likes. That is why testimonials and referrals are so very important.
Guest Blogging
It can feel counter-intuitive to ‘give away’ your best content. I remember my business coach reprimanding me for “giving away my intellectual capital” as recently as 2012. But in a world where collaboration is not only appreciated, but expected by your customers, you absolutely have to be open to sharing your brilliance with both people who pay for it with money, and with people who offer other things of value. Sometimes the best ROI is simply getting a truly warm lead. After all, the person reading the blog already has a relationship with the blog owner, and you are being ‘featured’ as an expert they trust. Sounds more like a hot lead if your content is right!
Don’t forget to publish on LinkedIn regularly as well.
Articles
Where guest blogging assumes you are reaching a ‘warm lead’ audience, submitting articles to appropriate trade magazines online and offline gets a different kind of attention and offers immediate credibility.
Infographics
It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? “Make something compelling and shareable” How hard can it be? Well, it can be very challenging, but it is also one of the top tools being used by businesses today. And yes – to explain how to do it well, here’s a link to an infographic on creating infographics…
Speaking Partnerships
Again, along the line of collaborating via guest blogging, you can agree to work with other non-competitive brands in ways other than writing. Speaker summits, guesting on a panel, speaking at a conference, etc. are all popular ways to keep your brand in front of your target client’s eyes.
Social Media Contests
This is one of my absolute favourites. What can you create where people will submit their photo/question/video / or whatever, and have others vote on it to move it forward in a competition? This concept works brilliantly for musicians and artists. As a speaker, what could you do?
A well-designed content will encourage participants to share their content so their followers vote them forward for a chance to win your awesome prize. They get visibility, and of course, so will your brand. One note – make your service offerings very clear in the prize itself so your target audience takes notice of both you and the person sharing the content.
What else have you done to bring brand awareness to your business? Share below!
