How to Build Brand Awareness: A Complete Guide for Small Businesses

You’re in the market for a new pair of walking shoes. The prereqs? Sturdiness, comfort, and lots of padding. You want these kicks to feel good on your feet, even on long city hikes. There are a few options in your Amazon list: Hoka, On, and a less expensive pair from a brand you’ve never heard of before. Ultimately, you go with the Hokas because you’ve seen their ads and A+ reviews. 

Your decision in this scenario demonstrates the power of brand awareness. Because you saw Hoka as a well-known brand worthy of your money, you opted to go with them. The generic option? Maybe they were cheaper, but we’re talking about your feet here! They deserve the best.

As a small business owner, you can develop your brand awareness strategy from the ground up. The key is implementing strategies that work — which is exactly what this guide is all about! You’ll learn how to build brand awareness from day one with foolproof techniques applicable to any organization.

What is brand awareness?

The concept of brand awareness is pretty simple. It refers to how familiar people are with your brand. With strong brand awareness in your niche, your company will be top of mind when people need the types of products or services you offer.

Organizations use brand awareness strategies to cultivate interest and loyalty in their offerings. But they all start small. At one point, even Coca-Cola was a minor player that few people knew about! Making brand awareness a focal point from the get-go is a must. 85% of CMOs say investments in brand marketing deliver long-term results. Translation: The work you put in toward learning how to build brand awareness today can pay off for years to come! 

Brand awareness types

There are three main forms of brand awareness. They include:

• Brand dominance: When people point to your brand as the leader in your niche
• Brand recognition: When customers recognize your brand’s name while they’re out and about
• Brand recall: When people associate your company with a specific product category

Think of the three brand awareness types as a triangle. Businesses work toward brand recall and recognition in their early stages and ascend upwards to brand dominance as they build a strong marketing foundation.

The 4 stages of brand awareness

Understanding the flow of brand awareness can help you identify which strategies to use in your marketing campaigns. Consider your company’s current stage and how to build brand awareness to move forward to the next stage.

Stage 1: Brand recognition

In the first stage, a consumer starts to recognize a brand’s name. Although they may not be super familiar with its products or have made a purchase, the company still has a small place in their mind. 

To develop brand recognition, focus on creating a memorable logo, tagline, and visuals. You want customers to remember who you are. Get insight into your recognition by tracking brand search volume and social media reach. 

Stage 2: Brand preference

Moving from brand recognition to preference is a big leap. In this stage, customers opt to buy from you rather than your competitors because — you guessed it! — they prefer your products.

To enter this stage, build a strong reputation. Deliver an excellent product and experience, and regularly ask customers for feedback. Showcase positive reviews and testimonials in your marketing materials. Over time, you’ll see customers choose your brand over other options.

Stage 3: Brand loyalty

Customers who purchase from you repeatedly are loyal to your brand. Whenever they need the product you sell, they’ll buy from you rather than a competitor.

Take laundry detergent as an example. Some people prefer Tide, while others like Gain. A loyal Tide advocate will always buy its detergent, even if Gain is less expensive.

As you learn how to build brand awareness, implement small strategies that encourage repeat purchases, like a loyalty discount program. Over time, you’ll see a trend toward brand loyalty among your customer base. 

Stage 4: Brand advocacy

Think of brand advocates as your small business’s cheerleaders. They love your products so much that they sing your praises to friends, family, and colleagues! Their natural enthusiasm for your company encourages others to shop with you right off the bat.

Brand advocacy can be as simple as mentioning your company in a conversation with a friend. Your most passionate fans could even create content about your offerings, like product reviews and recommendation videos.

The importance of brand awareness

Companies sometimes seek quick wins over long-term gains in their marketing campaigns. However, learning how to build brand awareness often has a bigger payoff. Here’s why.

Business benefits of strong brand awareness

The more people who know about your brand, the more meaningful your engagement will become. Clients who love your products or services are eager to support you online and in person, boosting your reputation among their community. Their engagement can help you expand your customer base and develop a steady stream of revenue.

How brand awareness affects the customer journey

Customers tend to drift toward companies they’re familiar with and are less likely to risk their money with new-to-them brands. That’s especially true for pricey offerings like electronics and home services.

Without initial trust in a business, customers won’t move through your journey map. Focus on increasing brand awareness to get people in the door, then build that trust to encourage sales.

How long does it take to build brand awareness?

Building brand awareness takes time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get some short-term wins!

What impacts your brand awareness timeline?

Certain factors influence the brand recognition timeline. One is uniqueness. A product with no competitors whatsoever may find it easier to quickly become a household name. Look at artificial intelligence (AI). The first consumer-grade generative AI product was ChatGPT. While there are several companies in the mix now, ChatGPT still reigns as the leader in the market. It became synonymous with generative AI within months of its introduction.

Your marketing efforts form the foundation for brand awareness. As you explore how to build brand awareness, ensure your marketing is consistent and strategic. Engaging regularly across platforms sets you up for success and can lead to faster results. 

Include a mix of short-term and long-term strategies in your brand-building marketing activities. For example, you could use a two-week social media paid advertising campaign to get new eyes on your business in the short term, but build long-term loyalty through a monthly email newsletter.

Accelerating brand awareness growth

To jumpstart your brand awareness, try incorporating public relations tactics into your campaign. Draft a press release for your next product launch and share it with industry publications and journalists. Features from local TV stations, magazines, and radio hosts give your company credibility and instant recognition.

You could also leverage online ads for a quick boost. Running paid campaigns on keywords related to your business can drive customers to your website, increasing brand awareness amongst your target audience.

Primary techniques for building brand awareness

Every successful brand awareness strategy starts with a solid foundation. Incorporate these techniques into your campaigns to enhance your results.

Consistency across touchpoints

Give your brand a distinct personality that people connect with. A unique color scheme and logo help you stand out from your peers. 

Also, think about your messaging. How do you want to position your brand to customers? Is it fun and engaging? Smart and sophisticated? Whatever your visual identity and messaging strategy is, it must stay consistent across all touchpoints. Changes can confuse customers and reduce your credibility. 

Strategic content marketing

Content like videos, blogs, and social media posts can make a lasting impression on customers. Work with your team to brainstorm topics to use in your content. Make sure your ideas are relevant to your industry and align with your audience’s interests and needs. Clothing boutiques will likely find success with try-ons and styling videos, but travel content will seem out of place on their feeds. 

Ensure consistency by building and following a content calendar. Plan your content mix across social media, email, and your website to keep yourself top of mind with your audience without overwhelming them.

Community building

Through community building, you can create a network of people who love and support your brand. Don’t limit yourself to social media! In-person communities are key drivers of success, too. For instance, if you own a bookstore, starting a book club could draw in loyal customers and build connections.

15 proven ways to build brand awareness

Eager to get started on your journey? Here’s how to build brand awareness using techniques that strengthen your organization’s reputation.

Digital marketing strategies

Digital marketing takes place online through websites, search engines, email, and social media platforms. Since 94% of the U.S. population uses the internet, it’s a great way to reach people and grow your brand.

Social media presence

Social media is completely free, and millions of people check their accounts daily. Platforms like  Facebook and Instagram offer numerous tools to help your business take off. 

Spend some time following other businesses in your niche to learn how they build their presence. While you’ll want to establish your own identity, their content can give you some inspiration and a quick tutorial on what works.

Treat social media as a meeting place between you and your audience. Engage frequently and respond to their comments so they know you value their input. 

Run social media ads

There’s nothing like a good social media ad! They can be targeted to any demographic or location, so learn what attributes your core customers share when setting up your campaigns.

Even if social media users don’t interact with your ads, you’re still gaining visibility with potential customers in your area. Repeatedly seeing your organization’s name and product strengthens brand awareness. 

Improve SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tactic brands use to rank highly in search engines for favored keywords. SEO helps your brand appear higher in the results when people search for something you offer. 

Start by identifying keywords relevant to your business and work them in naturally throughout your website. You can include keywords in blogs, landing pages, product descriptions, and your home page. When learning how to build brand awareness, this is a low-cost strategy to start building long-term success.

Pay-per-click Google Ads

Google Ads are incredibly powerful. For a per-click fee, you can target customers who initiate searches using keywords specific to your business. Your webpage will appear in the top few results, which can help bring traffic (and customers) to your site. The beauty of these ads is that you don’t have to wait months or years for an SEO plan to deliver results — your link will show up at the top of the list, even if you launched your website yesterday.

To reap the benefits of Google Ads, make your ad attractive and representative of what you offer. Include simple terms that convey benefits and encourage viewers to click. 

Retargeting campaigns

Retargeted ads appear to people who have visited your website without making a purchase. Their visit stores a small text file on their device, known as a cookie. The cookies provide basic information about their browsing activities and what they’re looking for, which you can use to show follow-up ads on other web pages they visit. 

Retargeting lets you showcase your brand over and over to the same customer. It’s a newer marketing trend that’s majorly useful when you’re exploring how to build brand awareness and win back customers. 

Content-based strategies

Use content to inform and entertain your audience. Good content can help you build credibility and show off your brand’s unique perspective. 

Tell your story

Is there a compelling tale behind your brand? Maybe you developed a cutting-edge product after years of research, or you started your company as a teenager. Whatever your story is, share it! Be authentic to connect with your audience on a deeper level.

Guest blogging

Guest blogging does double duty: It gets your brand in front of new eyes and positions you as a trusted, credible business in your space. Including links to your website in the post helps you build domain authority, which is an important ranking factor for SEO, and can generate more traffic.

To start guest blogging, reach out to industry peers who aren’t direct competitors. Offer a piece that’s relevant to both of your businesses but isn’t too salesy. For example, if you offer mortgage lending services, you could write a blog on home loan qualifications for a local real estate firm. Many companies are receptive to guest blogging and will be excited about this marketing opportunity.

Start a podcast

Would you rather speak than write? A podcast might be right up your alley! Try hosting a podcast that covers topics connected to your business and provides listeners with valuable information or entertainment. 

Take Constant Contact’s Be a Marketer podcast as an example. Every Thursday, we release a new episode full of marketing tips for small businesses. The podcast helps us serve our community and set small business owners up for success.

Create shareable infographics

When learning how to build brand awareness, don’t be afraid to experiment! Adding infographics to your marketing strategy can boost social media shares and get more eyes on your business. Always include your brand name, logo, and a call to action (CTA) in your post.

Narrow down topic ideas specific to your industry. For instance, if you run a tutoring company, you could create an infographic to explain teaching methods that improve learning retention and increase student enjoyment, and add a CTA to book a tutoring session in the post caption.

Video content creation

Create videos that are on-brand and relevant to your industry. You can go the informative route with videos that demonstrate your expertise or try funny short-form clips that get your audience laughing. 

YouTube is an ideal platform for all types of video content, while Instagram and TikTok are excellent short-form tools. You can also share videos through your website or embed them in email content.

Relationship-building strategies

Businesses thrive on relationships with customers and other companies. Strengthen ties in your community to enhance brand awareness. 

Brand partnerships

Brand partnerships are a key way to build recognition in your niche. You could partner with a school or sports team to sponsor a local event, or collaborate with another business and cross-promote both of your services.

Say your town has an annual festival. You could sign up as a sponsor and donate money in exchange for a promotional banner on the fairgrounds! Some events allow you to set up on-site booths where you can connect with attendees and showcase your products or services.

Influencer marketing

No matter your industry, there are influencers in your niche! These social media personalities have engaged, trusting audiences, creating a huge opportunity for small business owners exploring how to build brand awareness.

Most influencer partnerships fall into two categories: paid and organic. With a paid partnership, you pay an influencer a small fee (and give them free products or services) in exchange for content about your brand, like an Instagram Story with a product review or a dedicated YouTube video where they visit your store. 

Organic influencer partnerships, on the other hand, don’t come with guaranteed content. Here, you send an influencer free products in the hopes that they’ll talk about them online. Have you ever seen a beauty influencer open up PR packages on Instagram? That’s organic influencer marketing!

Referral programs

A referral program gives customers an incentive to recommend your business to their family and friends. You might offer clients a discount or a free product if their recommendation results in a sale. Even better, try sweetening the deal by giving the new customer a freebie, too.

Say you run a car wash. You could offer 50% off a standard wash through the referral program, with the new and existing customers each receiving the discount.

Social media contests

If you’re spinning your wheels wondering how to build brand awareness through social media,  try hosting a contest! You could establish a theme and ask your followers to create content around it. Tagging your brand or using a special hashtag can help you track entries and reward the winner with a prize. 

The bigger the reward, the more buzz you’ll generate for your brand. Just be sure to abide by any applicable social media platform rules or legal regulations when implementing this method.

Local community involvement

Everyone loves a local hero — that person who’s always helping their community, whether they’re shoveling snow in the neighborhood or organizing volunteers for a nonprofit. Identify causes that reflect your brand’s values, then get involved! Check out local organizations for opportunities to participate or host your own event.

How to increase brand familiarity

As you learn how to build brand awareness, don’t discount the importance of brand familiarity. Once people know about your brand, they need regular interactions and memorable experiences to form a connection.

Frequency and repetition strategies

Even if you’re not directly communicating with a customer, they’ll begin to remember your brand through repeated exposure. Use a variety of strategies to make your marketing techniques feel organic. For example, in one week you might:

• Run a paid ad targeting your previous website visitors
• Post on Facebook and TikTok
• Distribute a marketing email
• Write a guest blog
• Participate in a local event

Chances are, your marketing efforts won’t reach the same people every time. That’s why it’s important to switch up your strategies, which helps expand your reach and grow your audience. 

Creating memorable brand experiences

Whenever you interact directly with a customer, go above and beyond to make it memorable. Treat it as an opportunity to get to know them and demonstrate how much you appreciate their business.

For example, if a client leaves a comment on your social media account, give a thoughtful response. Brands that sell online could invest in special packaging that customers enjoy unwrapping. Choose what works best for your business — developing unique strategies is a big part of learning how to build brand awareness.

Low-cost brand awareness tactics for small businesses

Brand awareness marketing doesn’t require a huge investment. Being on a shoestring budget still provides tons of opportunities to reach new customers.

Digital tactics that don’t break the bank

Businesses love online marketing for two reasons: It’s cost-effective and delivers results. Implement these budget-friendly techniques as you deepen your understanding of how to build brand awareness.

Develop your brand voice

Think of brand voice as your company’s personality. Like people, every brand has a distinctive tone it uses to explain things, talk to people, and sell products. Find ways to make your brand voice unique, whether that’s through specific language, bold imagery, or how you use social media.

Inject personality

You don’t have to be a carbon copy of other successful companies! Don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd with playful humor or innovative visual elements — whatever traits demonstrate the values your brand stands for.

Email marketing campaigns

It’s never too early to start building an email marketing list. Even if you only have a handful of customers, email is a powerful tool for growing your brand awareness. Customers will come to expect your messages, and you’ll establish one-on-one connections.

User-generated content strategies

Give yourself an occasional break from marketing and let your audience take the lead! Encourage customers to post about their experience with your brand or leave reviews on your preferred site. You can provide an incentive for their efforts, like a discount next time they buy from you.

Offline strategies on a budget

Nothing builds trust in a business like local word of mouth. Here’s how to build brand awareness in your community.

Free swag

Gifts are always a hit! Give away small items that feature your branding and contact details, like T-shirts or pens. You’ll gain goodwill among potential clients and get some extra exposure when they use their items.

Car wraps

Cover your personal or company car with a wrap that includes your logo and phone number. This method may seem a bit old school, but it’s an easy way to spread the word about your business!

Community event participation

Meet your audience where they are around town. You could run a booth at a craft fair, sponsor a local theatre company’s next show, or volunteer to clean up your city’s parks.

Local partnerships

Networking with other company owners in your area is a great way to gain exposure. These relationships can lead to valuable cross-promotions or referrals down the road.

How to build brand awareness through customer experience

Memorable experiences stay with customers, so make the most of every interaction.

Creating consistency across all touchpoints

Map a customer’s typical journey with your brand and identify key moments. Are they getting the same experience at every touchpoint? Review each interaction to ensure you’re communicating with the same brand voice and your level of service never wavers. Delivering a positive, consistent experience to every customer turns supporters into advocates.

Turning customers into brand ambassadors

Give customers an easy way to leave reviews for your brand. Send follow-up emails after purchases, or add QR codes that link directly to your Google Business Profile on your receipts.

Innovative brand awareness strategies

Want to add something new to your marketing? Learn how to build brand awareness through these unique tactics.

Using technology for brand building

Polls, quizzes, and games are fun ways to interact with your audience. Try running polls on social media ahead of a new launch, or send quizzes and games to email subscribers.

Depending on your niche, creating a mobile app could be great for your business. Not only will an app build recognition among your audience, but it’s also a great tool to facilitate sales.

Psychology-based awareness tactics

Taking a cutting-edge stance on a topic in your industry puts a spotlight on your brand. People love new ideas, so if you have something to contribute, it may be worth a mention! 

Pattern interruption techniques, where you include unexpected elements in your ads or marketing, can improve brand recall. Remember when the Pop-Tarts mascot got toasted and eaten? It took fans by surprise and got them talking!

How to measure brand awareness success

Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics helps you better evaluate your brand awareness efforts. 

Quantitative metrics

Quantitative metrics use numerical data to track performance. They provide objective insights you can benchmark and monitor over time. Quantitative brand awareness metrics include:

• Brand name search volume: The number of website searches for your business
• Social media metrics: Likes, comments, shares, views, and mentions
• Share of voice: How much you’re talked about compared to competitors

Qualitative measurements

Qualitative metrics rely on subjective data to evaluate performance. They help you keep a pulse on what your audience thinks of your brand. A few examples include:

• Surveys and focus groups: Asking customers for product or experience feedback
• Sentiment analysis: Tracking online perception of your organization

Building a brand awareness strategy

Create a roadmap for your brand awareness campaign that includes objectives, techniques, and monitoring tools.

Setting clear brand awareness goals

An effective brand awareness strategy starts with well-defined short-  and long-term goals. In the short term, aim for brand recall, where customers begin to recognize your brand by name. Over the long term, you can focus on a bigger goal, such as the number of new clients per quarter.

Creating your brand awareness action plan

Setting up an action plan keeps you moving toward your goals. Create a realistic timeline with target milestones along the way. And don’t forget to set a campaign budget! Start small and invest more as your efforts pay off.

Common brand awareness mistakes to avoid

A little knowledge goes a long way! As you learn how to build brand awareness and implement your first campaign, follow these best practices to sidestep major obstacles.

Strategy mistakes

Look out for common pitfalls like inconsistent messaging or broad targeting. To avoid this, review your content for messaging, voice, and tone before publishing it. Prevent your team from going too broad by focusing on a few key demographics at the start. Then, expand your circle as your business grows. 

Also, be sure not to neglect current customers. Even though they’re already familiar with your brand, continue to target them in your campaigns.

Execution mistakes

Even if you don’t see results immediately, know that people are paying attention! Throwing in the towel early is never the answer. 

Be sure to set goals and track results from day one. That way, you’ll know if you’re falling shy of your objectives and can tweak your strategies accordingly.

While digital brand awareness strategies may be your focus, try implementing offline techniques, too. They’re especially important for organizations with a local presence.

Brand awareness: Your path to sustainable business growth

Brand awareness pays off in dividends over the long term. When customers associate products with your business, they’re more likely to buy from you rather than a competitor. 

Ready to get started? Constant Contact’s email and social media platform integrates with over 300 apps used by small businesses to build brand awareness. Join today to jumpstart your next campaign!