But increasing traffic is only the first step toward making a sale. As soon as you get more eyes on your brand, it’s time to act, converting website visitors into paying customers.
Ahead, understand how you can build brand awareness for your business and maximize its impact by urging potential customers down the conversion funnel. Also, learn about ways to increase exposure and measure awareness through real examples from successful brands.
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Quick answers: brand awareness essentials
Brand awareness measures how familiar consumers and a target audience are with a business, its products, and its branding. It sits at the first stage of the conversion funnel, before interest, desire, and conversion.
How can businesses increase brand awareness online? Sellers grow online visibility through organic social content, targeted ad campaigns on social platforms and Google Ads, press mentions and features, SEO-optimized content, and guest appearances on podcasts or panels. Each channel introduces a brand to a different segment of a target audience and moves potential customers into the awareness stage of the funnel.
What strategies help build brand awareness right now? Effective tactics include partnering with influencers, running giveaways or limited-edition collaborations, sponsoring newsletters or events, pitching timely stories to media outlets, publishing keyword-optimized content and video tutorials, and speaking on industry podcasts or panels.
How do businesses turn brand awareness into sales? Converting awareness into sales starts with a strong first impression on a homepage or landing page, then continues by reducing friction with social selling and mobile-friendly experiences, optimizing content for search, using clear calls to action, timing offers around seasons or events, personalizing the shopping experience, retargeting engaged visitors, and creating urgency with limited-time offers or stock counters.
What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness refers to familiarity or knowledge of your business by consumers and your target audience. A person who is aware of your brand may be able to recognize your branding when they see it or recall your brand name in the context of your industry. Companies with strong brand awareness become household names, recognizable from a few notes of a jingle or a wordless logomark.
Brand awareness is the first stage of the conversion funnel. Here’s a breakdown of what each level of the funnel means:
- Awareness. When someone becomes aware of your brand and turns into a potential customer.
- Interest. When a potential customer becomes interested in your brand’s offerings.
- Desire. When a potential customer’s interest becomes a desire for your brand’s offerings.
- Conversion. When a potential customer’s desire leads to a purchase.
Why is brand awareness important?
Turning a potential customer’s brand awareness into a sale means you’re helping them move their way down the conversion funnel. If you’ve recently gained exposure that increased your brand awareness, you’re at the first level of the funnel.
Creating brand awareness is important, because without it, you’ll never be able to grow your sales. Your target customers need to know about your brand before they decide to learn more and eventually make a purchase.
Building brand awareness is also essential because it can increase your brand equity. Brand equity is the measurement of what your brand is worth in the eyes of the general public and the market.
How to build awareness for your brand
There are a number of strategies you can implement to increase brand awareness. If your goal is to become a recognizable brand, start with building a solid brand identity. Once you’ve done that, use these brand awareness tactics to get your business in front of your customers.
Get creative with organic social
Increasing your brand presence on social media is a great way to get in front of customers who use these platforms for product discovery.
- Run a marketing campaign with viral potential by partnering with compatible brands to co-host a giveaway or limited edition product collab.
- Engage influencers whose followers match your target audience.
- Incentivize existing customers to help increase brand awareness by offering a perk for a social media review or unboxing.
- Jump on trends and showcase your brand voice by creating content around a viral meme or cultural moment.
Canned bean company Heyday reinvented the pantry staple, hoping to stand out in an established market. The brand ran a Bean Swap event—a wild idea that went viral on TikTok, gaining the brand exposure in NYC and beyond.
@heydaycanningco Hey New Yorkers, Heyday’s Bean Swap Pop is here!!! Stop by today until Sunday and don’t forget your beans 😉🫘🛍️ #nycthingstodo #nycforfree #nycfreepopup #nycwinter #nycguide ♬ original sound - Heyday Canning Co.
Run ads
Advertising campaigns are great ways to reach highly targeted audiences and raise brand awareness. You can advertise on social media platforms, through Google Ads, or even directly with certain publications or creators.
Try sponsoring a newsletter with a large subscriber base or an in-person event where you can get brand exposure. Either way, be sure you choose partners that make sense for your brand.
Secure press mentions
Part of your brand awareness strategy could include a dedicated effort to getting press. Pitch your brand to newspapers, blogs, and other media outlets that may have an interest in your type of business or product. Get creative with timely pitches, like gift ideas for major shopping holidays.
💡 Tip: After you get press attention, feature these stories on your website and on social media, like in the above example from Squigs. This helps build social proof and trust for your brand.
Improve your SEO
There are likely many other brands competing with yours for attention from the same audience. Help consumers find your brand first when they’re searching by investing in a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. This means you’ll optimize your website, blog posts, videos, and social posts with the right keywords and content to match user search intent.
Pattern brand Tooth & Eye took advantage of search volume for DIY bucket hat instructions. Because the brand optimized its video tutorial, it shows up in search results. Searchers then gain brand awareness as its founder reminds viewers of its online shop.
Be a guest on a podcast or panel
Raising brand awareness can also be achieved by speaking as an expert in your field on a podcast or radio show, or even at a live event. Do you have lessons learned from running your business to share with an audience? Or are you a subject matter expert in your industry? Pitch your expertise to media companies, podcast hosts, and event producers.
Charlotte Palermino, CEO of skin care brand Dieux, appeared on Shopify Masters to share her tips for social media. In the process, she gained brand awareness with a new audience.
