6 Unique Ways to Build Brand Awareness

Written by Dawn Burke | Sep 29, 2016

Marketers have no shortage of ways to build up their brand. In fact, the problem is quite the opposite. With so many paths to go down, how do you decide which are worth investing in?

This question gets even harder when your typical brand awareness strategies get stale. Rather than risk stagnation by putting your brand out there the same way time after time, innovative marketers look to more unique ways to catch the attention of their audience.

If you’re looking for fresh ideas for promoting your brand, check out our ideas below to kick off your brainstorming session.

1. Team up with an influencer to introduce your brand to a dedicated audience

“Influencer marketing,” as it’s come to be known, has exploded in recent years. The concept is pretty simple: Find an influential figure in your industry who has the attention of many fans and followers––whether on social media or elsewhere––and partner with them to expose your brand to a dedicated, engaged audience.

Think of it as super-charged, word-of-mouth marketing. By engaging key individuals to leverage their influence among an audience aligned with your brand, you can instantly get in front of a lot of new eyes.

While an influencer campaign can take many different shapes, they usually consist of three key steps:

Find an influencer through social media or Google search whose followers fit your target market
Arrange a mutually-beneficial promotion arrangement and create a campaign the influencer can easily launch to drive awareness of your brand
Track metrics to measure the reach, sales results, and audience growth achieved by the campaign

With a whopping 92% of people trusting recommendations from individuals¹ (even if they don’t know them) over brands, this kind of partnership can be a quick and effective way to expand your brand among a new, untapped audience.

2. Create and share infographics

Infographics are a fun, engaging way to communicate statistics, processes and other data that can be displayed visually. While content with colored visuals have been shown to increase people’s willingness to engage with it by 80%,² the branding value comes with sharing.

Infographics are “liked” and shared on social media 3X more than any other kind of content.³

Tackling a topic that relates to your products or service can go a long way in increasing brand awareness. If you’re interested in creating one yourself, start by considering a few common questions customers typically bring to you––or more generally, what kinds of information interests them and is relevant to what you do.

Then think about how those answers or interests can be addressed through a stimulating visual. Does your product or service involve a particular process? Make it easier to understand by drawing it out. Are there compelling statistics around what you do? Put together some graphs and charts to drive those numbers home.

Visual presentations about topics your brand can tap into, when presented in an infographic bearing your brand logo, can instantly position you as a thought leader and innovator in that space, building authority and familiarity quickly.

3. Get creative with direct mail

Direct mail has seen a recent resurgence as customers increasingly want more “real” connections with brands they care about.⁴ While the tried-and-true best practices are important to keep in focus, mail allows for more unique and inventive ideas, too.

Here are a couple projects our team dreamed up:

4. Create valuable promotional items

One of the simplest ways to breathe some life into your brand is attaching your logo and/or message to items that might seem unusual for promotion, but have a lot of real-world utility.

A 2012 study⁵ surveying close to 15,000 people who had received a promotional product found that:

66% of participants claimed they could recall the brand on the promotional product received with the past 12 months
79% would be likely to do business with the company again
56% said their impression of the company improved after receiving a branded promotional gift

Examples of popular items are water bottles, USBs, pens, t-shirts, etc. While these are often very much appreciated and tend to get used, also consider how finding a unique item that people don’t normally receive could make your brand stand out even more.

5. Organize a competition

Competitions are an engaging way to generate interest in your brand through association. When done well, this can be a starting point for building new relationships with clients and customers.

Here are a few things to consider when planning one out:

Have a purpose. When it comes to goals, focus on something more than the abstract idea of “building brand awareness.” Do you want to increase your social following? Boost traffic to your website? Get people engaging with an offer? Set a goal and then decide on a way to direct the audience into the competition itself.

Have a prize. Contests by nature need an incentive to win. Make sure the prize is relevant and compelling.

Promote it. Use all the channels at your disposal to get the word out.

Measure success. When planning your goals, be sure to decide how you’ll be able to measure success. Based on these findings, you can better inform your branding strategy in the future.

6. Personalize your communications

Personalization goes a long way in building the kind of authenticity customers crave from brands because they are generally more enjoyable and communicate an investment in customers themselves. Whether on your website, through direct mail, or elsewhere, giving your audience something just for them shows you care while also increasing your chances of engagement.

If you’re new to personalization and looking for a place to start, try personalized direct mail campaigns, landing pages or webpages - or a combination of all three.

Personalized direct mail. Using Variable Data Printing, you can use rich contact data to deliver individualized communications and offers that call out recipients by name. Learn more about setting up a personalized campaign in “How to Design Personalized Direct Mail to Connect With Consumers.”

Personalized landing pages. It’s also possible to create distinct, individual offers for email and/or direct mail recipients online. Using personalized URLs (PURLs) and QR codes, you can easily combine offline and online elements into one campaign.

Personalized website pages. Similar to landing pages, many tools are available for making content on your other website pages “smart.” In short, this uses prior browsing histories, cookie data, and data on where the user is coming from to display information relevant to them.

These are just a few of the more unique ways to boost brand awareness, both online and offline.

Interested in partnering with Suttle-Straus to plan, create, and promote an exciting new campaign of your own?

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