What do clients think of you when they are on the Internet? Have you reviewed what they see about your business? Do they get the same message wherever they find your business?
Your digital presence, the content you produce, the posts you reshare, the comments you make, and the online conversations you engage in are key elements of your business identity.
Your interests, thinking, expertise, and authority are showcased. What you create for the internet helps those who come across those creations—posts, videos, articles, engagements—trust you for very specific things. Erfolk Marketing Agency outlines six steps you may take to boost brand awareness and stay in the forefront of your clients’ minds.
Data About You
The flow of data is responsible for all your web content (semantic search) and by association with all marketing and branding content. Search engines scour data looking for answers to queries on the internet.
You want your data to be found and delivered to searchers.
You’ll face many challenges when it comes to successful advertising, marketing, and branding, as well as having a sterling reputation and being seen as trustworthy.
Everything you have on the web reflects on your brand. The more you connect with clients and potential customers the better you build your brand awareness.
All that data about you—your business—reflects on how potential customers and clients perceive your business.
Build Brand Recognition
A brand strategy for your web presence—whatever you have on the internet—aims to tell people about your business, get them interested in your product or service, and perceive your business as the solution they need to solve a problem.
You want to be consistent—logo, brand colors, font choice, messaging, image types, voice (humorous, serious, witty)—because wherever your clients find you, they recognize your business. Oh, here’s [YOUR BUSINESS] talking about [YOUR BUSINESS TOPIC] and answering questions about just what I wanted to know.
That’s how brand recognition works in your favor. As people see you on point about your topic, they begin to know and trust your business as a resource.
And the more they do, the more likely they are to purchase your solution to their need.
The more you appear as the resource, you’ll become the top-of-mind solution for searchers looking for answers.
How To Build Your Online Brand Awareness
The best way to build brand awareness is to develop a business personality and let it show wherever you have a presence online. It’s more than a recognizable logo like Coca-Cola.
It’s more like The Virgin Group of companies, founded by Richard Branson. That’s because of the power, perception, and reach of his presence on the web.
As David Amerland says in his book SEO Help (Online Success Series, 2020, p. 113):
There are mathematical calculations behind all this that ascribe a specific algorithmically determined weight to your presence which makes it ‘trusted’ in the eyes of search engines and, as a result, visible to more people across the web.
You don’t necessarily need to understand the calculations, but you do need to do the work to increase your business visibility.
Here are six steps that serve as a foundation to build your brand for recognition on the web:
1. Be Selective
Be choosy about your activities. Pick your range of expertise and stay with that.
Deliver real value to prospective customers with genuine, focused material.
Staying focused and selective about what you put on the web will get you faster, deeper results.
2. Have A Style
Give your business a personality and let it shine through. In other words, be real. Don’t hide behind facts or present a “safe” persona that recites what’s already out there. Show your enthusiasm.
This uniqueness is part of what makes you recognizable wherever you show up on the web.
Be real and show your humanity. You’ll make it easier for people to relate to you.
3. Be Consistent
When your audience begins to understand you, they start to trust you. Repeatedly show your business values through your content and actions.
Keep your information focused, and show it in a variety of ways in many online places and platforms. Engage with every response to an article or a social media post, demonstrating that you care about your customers.
4. Be Intentional
Curate your business identity. Just as you as a person want to be known for certain traits, you want the same recognition (brand awareness) for your business.
Align your principles, values, and goals with who you are as a business. And, equally important, who you want your business to become.
Reflect these values in all your online activities.
5. Invest Time
The reason you have a business presence on the web is to gain new customers or clients. When someone asks you a question, answer the question. When someone comments on a social media post, respond.
It’s not a one-way street on the web. Engagement with people who come to your website or any platform is potential customers. Give them the time they expect and need to develop a relationship with your business.
6. Evolve
The modern marketplace is fluid, and technology evolves. Stay current with online best practices. Make sure your business develops and evolves along with the platforms and technologies you use to connect with your audience.
Your Brand Identity and Technology
To choose and use the right technology for your business, you need to have a clear vision of your business brand.
The clearer you are about your business, the easier it is to make decisions about your brand awareness campaigns. From what content goes in your blog posts to images you choose, your topic as a podcast guest, your marketing and advertising—they all reflect your brand.
Having these steps in place will help you strategize the best ways to use technology to make people aware of your brand.
Whether you build your own brand awareness strategy or hire a digital marketing agency, these steps are the building blocks for successful brand awareness.
