As a smaller brand, you’re always looking for ways to get your brand in front of more eyes. But doing so is usually much easier said than done. If you want to build brand awareness, you need a strategic plan.

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness is one of those elements that’s very important, yet often misunderstood. So before we dig into the nitty-gritty details of how to build such, let’s make sure we know what we’re discussing.

According to WordStream, “Brand awareness is the extent to which a brand is recognized by potential customers and correctly associated with its particular product or service. In the case of a small business, their level of brand awareness may not reach eponym status (e.g. asking for a Kleenex instead of a tissue), but simpler forms are counted as success.”

For example, brand awareness is consumers knowing what your business does when they see it. It could be a social media follower knowing your content will be funny when they see a new post pop up in their feed. Or it could be someone choosing your brand over a more expensive competitor because they’re familiar with who you are.

While the terms often get used interchangeably, brand awareness and brand recognition aren’t the same things. Brand recognition could be described as the extent to which a consumer can identify you based on visual cues like logos and colors. Brand awareness takes this recognition a step further.

“It involves recalling not only the business name, but also the general feeling of the business, information about its products and services, and other experiential details,” WordStream notes.

If you want to supercharge your business growth, cultivating brand awareness is an absolute must. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

Tips for Creating Brand Awareness

There are literally thousands of ways to build brand awareness. However, we’re going to give you a few of the simplest options that won’t break the bank.

• Get Clear on Your USP

Every brand should have a clear unique selling proposition, also known as a USP. If you don’t already have one, now is the time to create one.

There are dozens of different strategies for coming up with your USP, but the ultimate goal is to communicate what you do best. Ideally, this one thing should be unique/different than what the competition offers.

You’ll find a lot of different frameworks available online, but here’s one of the best:

“We help [insert target audience] to [insert desire they have] without the [insert pain they want to avoid].”

For example, if you’re selling lawnmowers, your USP might look like this:

We help homeowners consistently win ‘yard of the month’ without having to spend the entire weekend working on their lawn.

Once you have a clear USP, you can use it in all of your marketing and branding to stand out.

• Invest in Modern PR

Old PR strategies of cold-pitching no longer work like they used to. But that doesn’t mean PR is dead. The internet has simply altered how it works. As industry leaders like Relevance show, it’s more alive than ever. You just have to adapt to the digital version of PR.

Digital PR strategy is a team effort. It consists of PR outreach, social media, content marketing, SEO, link building, and traditional networking. Done well, a modern PR strategy can help you build brand awareness cost-effectively.

• Spend Strategically

You don’t have to spend a ton of money to get your brand out there. However, when it does come time to spend, make sure you’re doing so strategically. One good option is to run retargeting campaigns on Facebook to reach audiences who are already familiar with your brand.

You can run campaigns to specifically target people who have recently visited your website, used your app, clicked on your Facebook Page, etc. By retargeting them, you keep your brand top of mind and forge an even stronger connection.

Adding it All Up

You don’t need a six- or seven-figure marketing budget to create brand awareness. While it certainly helps to have deep pockets, there are plenty of ways to cultivate awareness on a limited budget.

Hopefully, this article has given you some inspiration that you can use to elevate your presence in the coming months.