Your online presence is the equivalent to first contact between your brand and your prospective clients. Most people use a company’s online presence as a test of that company’s validity and credibility. They want to connect with the owner of the brand and hear their story before deciding whether or not to obtain their services. Make a connection with your prospective customer base.
Here are 8 ways that you can increase your online brand awareness
1. Consistency with branding
There’s a lot of shouting online. Your brand message needs to be clear and concise so it doesn’t get lost in the noise. By having a consistent message across all of your online channels helps to cut through the noise. This includes channels such as your website, social networks, blogs, document sharing sites etc.
Having a defined strategy with clear goals will not only help you achieve this consistency, but help any third party providers that you are using to manage your campaigns.
2. Optimise your site
There are around three billion searches conducted each and every day. Thats a lot of potential people looking for information, products or services that your brand provides. Optimising your website's performance, usability, content and mobile usage increases your brands visibility on search engines. A well optimised site also enhances a users experience with your brand cementing their perception of trust and credibility.
3. Write great quality content
Creating great engaging content is the best way to:
- add value to your website
- increase customer conversion
- inspire your customer's to share the content on social media
Try to build up a relationship with your customer rather than an aggressive sales pitch. By building up a relationship with your customer's you will build up trust.
Great content is also the base for your other online marketing such as SEO, social media and email marketing.
4. Social media marketing
Social Media Marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your businesses and increase the visibility of your brand. Social Media Marketing increases visibility, promotes brand loyalty, brand recognition and can even grow your sales. It also allows you to have a conversation between your brand and your customers. A well managed social media campaign can give you the power to become an authority in your field.
5. Press release marketing
Creating press releases or articles that have great engaging content is a part of your content and social media marketing campaign. It helps you become an authority in your field. If you can create a press release about an event or a new product that it is picked up by Google News then this results in free positive promotion for your company and a potential surge in your incoming traffic.
6. Video marketing
Video content is the one of fastest areas of content creation, content sharing and engaging online. People respond more to moving imagery, sound and people speaking to them than straight text and images. Networks such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Metacafe make posting videos easier than ever before. Posting relevant and engaging videos about your niche is a great way to drive traffic to your site and get people to share your brand's message with other prospective customers.
7. Blogging
Some believe that blogging is one the best ways to improve the visibility of your brand online. Blogging can improve your search engine ranking, increase validity and spread the awareness of your brand to a wider audience. Blogging also enables you to become an authority on your niche which helps promote the trustworthiness of your brand, increase traffic and conversions or sales.
8. Email Marketing
Once you have built up a good customer contact database – use it. Sending out marketing emails is a good way to for you to engage with your customers and for them to engage with you. Your subscribers have already passed the first barrier and are more likely to convert into further by purchasing a product, or sharing content amongst their friends.
A final note
Don’t try to copy what everyone else is doing. You and your business are unique. Identify the why, the how and the what of your brand and communicate that to your users and customers. This will allow you to come across as authentic and more easily build trust and credibility of your brand.
Need help identifying the opportunities to grow your brand online - drop us a line.