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While there are many critical ingredients for building a successful business, branding is often one of the top priorities for most companies, especially as industries become more competitive.
With digital technology and eCommerce lowering the barriers to entry in almost every business sector, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to reach their target audience, let alone leave a lasting impression. However, regardless of how complex it is to increase brand awareness, it is absolutely pivotal if you want to connect with your target market more deeply, generate consumer trust and loyalty, and increase sales.
Fortunately, there are a few simple methods you can use to improve your branding strategy and raise awareness of your company’s products, services, and mission – and the good news is that they are all pretty straightforward to implement.
Develop a unique identity
According to AdWeek, 91% of consumers say they prefer to buy from an authentic brand. In other words, people want to engage with a brand that has a unique personality that stands out from the crowd. Of course, achieving this is much easier said than done, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t take small steps towards developing a unique identity for your brand. So, what are some simple ways you can do this?
Well, the first and easiest way is to focus on your visual identity. This includes things such as your logo, color scheme, and typography. Ideally, you want to find a visually striking logo that is memorable and captures the essence of your company’s mission. Much of Nike’s success can be boiled down to its iconic “Swoosh” logo and the identity the company curated on top of it. Thanks to their consistent branding efforts, the Nike logo is now one of the most recognizable symbols worldwide.
You also need to pay similar attention to your branding colors. Take Coca-Cola, for example, with its distinct red coloring.
The company always uses the same red color (HEX color code is #E61D2B) for all of its products, packaging, and marketing efforts. This consistency makes it one of the most popular beverages of all time. As for your business, pick a color scheme and try to instill the same level of consistency across your marketing efforts.
Create a unified email signature
Consistency is one of the cornerstones of a successful branding strategy. However, most companies neglect the tremendous impact email can have when it comes to boosting brand awareness. As it turns out, email is one of the most popular forms of communication, with 81 percent of small businesses using it as their primary customer acquisition channel. Yet, most of these businesses do not implement a unified business email signature, which means they leave it up to the individual employee to establish their own. This is a huge missed opportunity.
If every email that leaves your business contains a different email signature, it will be hard to build credibility and trust. On top of that, there is little chance that the email correspondence between employees and your audience will do anything to boost brand awareness.
Fortunately, there are companies that help you create a signature that looks highly professional, contains your logo and branding color scheme, and even offer social trust badges to boost credibility. Considering the low cost of these services in relation to the massive benefit they bring (and the little effort they require to set up), creating a unified company-wide email signature is without a doubt one of the best ways to enhance your branding strategy.
Make the most out of the influencers
Whatever your feelings are about influencer marketing, the truth is that it works. For whichever demographic you are targeting, there are likely to be a plethora of influencers ready to aid you in boosting brand recognition and connecting with consumers. According to a Google study, YouTube stars now have more influence than traditional celebrities, particularly among millennials and Generation Z. In fact, four out of ten millennial subscribers believe their favorite content creator knows them better than their friends.
Furthermore, according to an Econsultancy survey, 61 percent of customers aged 18 to 34 had been persuaded in their decision-making by digital influencers at some stage. As a result, if you want to increase the results of your branding strategy, influencer marketing is a great place to start.
Conclusion
There’s no denying that developing and implementing a successful branding strategy can be a difficult task. Not only is the competition for consumer attention at an all-time high, but the expectation for content quality has also gone through the roof. With that said, the three tips we have provided in this article should help to yield results and boost your brand awareness without too much of an investment on your behalf. Remember, consistency is key. Thus, you should strive to establish and maintain a recognizable branding scheme (logo, colors, and typography) before ensuring that all marketing efforts and email outreach are stamped with your unique company identity.
