Brand awareness is essential to improving your business, whether you are connecting with customers online or in the community. If you are planning to release a new product, you not only want your company’s brand to be out there, but for the product as well. Many popular products are known immediately (think Nike, Coca Cola, and Starbucks). They are known by the brand name (business name) as well as the product name.
These companies have done an excellent job of branding the product, and you can too with the following tips for increasing brand awareness.
Create a Website and Blog
Your website is a great place to start raising awareness for your brand. If you don’t already have a superior website for featuring your new product, get one designed. Thewebsite should be easy to navigate and not distracting for the average viewer. If you have an online shop, new products should be featured on the front page to get the most notice.
After getting your website up, be sure to implement a blog as well. A blog is ideal as part of your website, because you can write a little more about your new products, as long as the posts are relevant to what you sell. Use this as a platform for connecting with prospects and clients alike.
Improve Your Social Media Presence
Social media is one of the best ways to increase your brand. Not only because millions of people are using it every day, but they are sharing information as well. You can start engaging with your potential customers through social media and begin increasing your company’s presence. Through these methods, the product awareness is also improved.
Another benefit of using social media to announce your products is that the major search engines index social media updates and portfolios, so every time you post a link to your blog post, website or product page, you’re increasing your SEO potential through linking.
Local Advertising
While online and mobile marketing is still growing and very popular, it isn’t the only option you have. Don’t forget about the power of local advertising for your products and services. If you plan to have your product in local stores, then you’re going to want to leverage traditional advertising methods.
Doing so includes putting product information in newspapers, magazines, local advertisements, banners and more. Even sending out postcards about your products or getting together with a related business to do an advertising swap with them. You can also attend community events or trade shows to increase your local advertising potential.
Provide a Service
Providing a valuable service is often the easiest and most effective way to increase your product’s brand. Even if you sell products with your business, you can still find ways to provide services as well. If you’re a business that sells cleaning supplies, you could start a local service offering cleaning services to homes or businesses. Go one step further and offer them at a steep discount for low income families.
By doing this, you are increasing brand awareness by giving back to your community, and more people are going to then be more interested in the types of products you sell. It is also a great way to demonstrate how well your products work.
Reaching the Right Audience
You also want to work to reach the right audience. Your branding efforts are useless if you aren’t identifying your target market first. If you intend to have your products in stores, find out where your target market is not only shopping, but where they prefer going for your type of product. Depending on what it is, online stores might be more beneficial.
Tess C. Taylor, PHR is a certified Web Content Manager, Human Resources Professional, and Career Coach with nearly two-decades of writing experience. Tess also founded the popular blogazine The HR Writer. As a regular contributor to multiple HR and Business publications, including Benefitfocus, Dale Carnegie Institute, HR Magazine, PayScale, and US News Careers, Tess is dedicated to educating others about important human resources and marketing topics worldwide. You can connect with Tess on Google+ , Facebook and LinkedIn.