Brand awareness: definition, benefits and how to increase it for business owners

Brand awareness is the first step in introducing your brand to consumers.

The higher the level of brand awareness, the easier it is for consumers to remember the brand and lead to product purchases.

What is Brand Awareness?

The definition of brand awareness is the ability of consumers to immediately recognize and remember a brand just by looking at something, be it color, logo, image, and so on, which describes the identity of a brand.

The ability of consumers to recognize and remember a brand really needs to be created and studied because it will be the main factor that determines consumer behavior when making a decision to make a purchase.

A buyer will generally start a brand recognition journey from not knowing to knowing. If you look at the pyramid, the don't know is at the bottom and the know is at the top. Here's the explanation:

• Unaware of brand (does not recognize the brand)
  Unware of Brand is the lowest level in a pyramid of Brand Awareness, namely when consumers are not aware of the existence of a brand mentioned.
• Brand recognition
  Brand Recognition, is when consumers are able to recognize a brand that is mentioned after being given a stimulus to recall, even though they have actually used products for that brand.
• Brand recall
  Brand Recall, namely when consumers are able to recognize a brand mentioned again without the help of a stimulus. Most likely because these consumers often use or consume products for that brand.
• Top of mind
  The highest level in the Brand Awareness pyramid is Top of Mind, namely when the brand is mentioned for the first time by consumers when asked questions about the product in question. So the brand mentioned is at the Top of Mind level in terms of Brand Awareness.

In the branding process to instill a brand identity, you can create a deep impression, whether it's in the creation of a product name, a distinctive color, a unique logo, and the important thing is to maintain the same quality and service. The stronger the image you create, the stronger consumer awareness of your brand will be. In fact, if their loyalty increases, they can become a promotional "mouthpiece" for your product without you asking.

To have a brand with a high level of awareness from consumers, you need to do branding first. Branding is a process or effort that is used to give meaning to products or services. 

This means that you, as the owner of the brand, need to create a good and strong image in the minds of the public as well as a strategy that can be devised by the company to help the identification process quickly. In this way, your products and services will have a differentiator between the products and services that are already on the market. 

Brand Awareness Benefits

Of course, good brand awareness can also bring many benefits to your own brand.

The following are some of the benefits that companies can get from brand awareness.

• increase market share and sales
• increased consumer loyalty
• make consumers automatically think of your brand when they are about to purchase a product or service
• increase brand perception
• provide a foundation if your brand wants to expand
• can be helpful when introducing a new product or service to an audience
• build brand equity 

Brand Awareness Benchmark

Brand awareness is something that cannot be measured with definite numbers.

However, there are some benchmarks that can indicate the success of this brand awareness. Here are some benchmarks.

1. Traffic

The first measure of brand awareness is traffic.

Traffic is a number that shows how much and how often people visit your company's website.

They can type in your site's URL directly or click on it from other sources, such as social media.

Of course traffic is an important benchmark, because many brands market their products there. There is also a more complete explanation about brands on a website than social media.

The higher the traffic on your company's website, the higher the brand awareness which encourages them to find out more about your brand.

2. Social engagement

Social engagement can be seen as how much engagement appears on your brand's social media.

Of course your brand uses social media, right? Either as a marketing tool or simply to build brand engagement.

Social engagement can be measured by the number of likes, followers, comments, and other figures on social media.

3. Social listening

Social listening is a continuation of social engagement.

This benchmark looks at how many people involve your brand on their social media.

For example, how much do they tag your brand account, use the same hashtag as your company, and tag your brand account in a comment.

4. Search on Google

Another thing that you can see from brand awareness is search on Google.

You can track how many people find out and talk about your brand on the internet.

How to increase Brand Awareness

In the digital era like today, brand awareness can be increased by various methods that utilize technology. There are 7 ways to increase brand awareness strategy that you can try. What are they? Here's the explanation:

Create an attractive logo and product slogan

Brands are not always related to names. Sometimes people remember pictures faster than writing. So, so that your brand is quickly remembered, create a logo that has a special identity, matches the product being sold, and is different from other brand logos.

If the logo is still not effective, you can also make a product slogan that fits the product condition and is easy to remember.

Using social media

Based on statistical data, there are hundreds of millions of people who are active social media users. So, the strategy of using social media to introduce your brand can be an option.

Use websites

If you have programming skills or have sufficient capital, you can use the website to introduce and increase brand awareness to potential buyers.

Introduce products in certain events

The fourth way is to include products in certain events. This is because big events usually invite a lot of people, so their identification can be massive.

Running co-branding

If the brand you have is still small, you can invite cooperation with other brands with big names. That's what is called co-branding.

Rewards system

Who is not interested in free things. The sixth way is to use rewards. You can give gifts to potential buyers. So, buyers can remember your brand.

Collaborate with influencers

This method can also be an effective solution. Provided you have sufficient funds, you can hire influencer services to promote products. Make sure to choose influencers that are relevant to your product.

Closing

Brand awareness is a necessity for every business model. Increase the awareness of your potential buyers of the product brand you own. Set aside a specific budget for brand name building to further mature your plan. You also need to use effective and revolutionary advertising technologies.