Brand Awareness: How To Define, Measure and Improve It

Updated June 24, 2022

Every marketing professional wants to build a stronger relationship with their customers and market audience. One of the central parts of this goal is developing brand awareness. Understanding brand awareness and how it grows will help you develop a marketing strategy with brand awareness at its core. In this article, we explain what brand awareness is, why it's important, how to measure it and how to increase it.

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is when people connect with a product and company, especially on an emotional level. This can be accomplished through a corporate persona presented through social media and your website, connections your company has to your community and the quality of products and services you offer. Effective brand awareness is comprised of two key elements: brand recall and brand awareness.

Brand recall

Brand recall is when people can remember what products and services a company offers.

Brand recognition

Brand recognition is when your audience can connect your company's logo, slogan and other marketing tactics with your company's products and services.

These elements of brand awareness show how much of an impact you have on your audience and should distinguish your company from your competitors if created and implemented correctly.

Why is brand awareness important?

Brand awareness is one of the most important aspects of marketing because it keeps your company at the forefront of your customers' minds. Here are some benefits of making brand awareness a central part of your marketing strategy:

Promotes trust in the brand: People are more likely to buy products and services from companies they know and trust.
Market distinction: Brand awareness separates your company from your competition by helping your audience to associate your brand with the services and products you offer.
Consumer feedback: When customers are aware of your brand and what it stands for, they can provide feedback on their experiences with your company.
Word-of-mouth marketing: People are more likely to look for your products and services when others are talking about them.
Increased presence: Brand awareness increases traffic to your social media, website and stores.
Customer engagement: People will be excited to see what new products and services you are going to offer.
Boosted sales: You will be able to charge higher prices because people will see your brand as higher quality than your competitors.
Industry influence: You will have a greater impact on how your industry grows and how people talk about the products and services you offer because you will be an industry leader.

How to gauge brand awareness

Brand awareness can be measured through the improvements your company sees to other areas, including sales, online metrics and public relations. Here are ways you can measure how your brand awareness:

1. Review website traffic

You can review the statistics on the types of people coming to your site and how they're getting there. Direct traffic tells you how many people are visiting your website by typing in the URL. These are people who know your business, how to get to your website and actively want to visit your page. Indirect traffic can tell you how visitors get to your site from external links, such as affiliate links or those posted on social media.

2. Track social media engagements

Many tools help you track your social media presence. You can measure how and when people interact on your page, how often your posts are shared and how people are talking about your business. You can also review each individual post's success, identifying the number of clicks, likes, views, shares and other metrics.

3. Set search engine alerts

Many popular search engines provide companies access to an alert system that provides information about what people are saying about them. Setting up and reviewing these alerts can tell you how media outlets mention your business, industry and other keywords that you choose.

4. Test search engine results

You can see what comes up in search engines when you search for your company. This can give you an idea of where your business is being mentioned and if your social media accounts and website are at the top of the results. This information can also be used to boost your search engine optimization (SEO) strategies on your social media, website and other marketing promotions.

5. Create surveys and polls

You can use survey design systems and social media poll posts to learn what your audience and customers think of your company. This will give you direct feedback and can help build trust by showing interest in your market's experiences with your company.

How to increase brand awareness

Here are some steps to build your company's brand awareness:

1. Tell your company's story

Give your target market an authentic, interesting story that they can connect with, like how you produced your first product, challenges your company faces or your company's origin story. Consider publishing this information on your website's about page or creating social media posts about it to introduce followers to how you got started.

2. Showcase your company's values

Your customers can develop a new appreciation for your products and services when they know that you want to provide something of value. You should host community events and post about them online. You could publicly support social causes that match your values and demonstrate your dedication to helping communities.

3. Interact with your audience

A large part of brand awareness is building a relationship with your customers and audience. Respond to their comments, thank them for sharing your posts and ask for their experiences in the comments on your posts. You can also conduct some of your customer service efforts over social media by allowing customers to send you a private message to discuss any comments, concerns and questions they may have. This process allows you to potentially streamline the customer service experience.

4. Start a referral program

Get your customers talking about your brand by offering discounts and special services to people who refer to your company. One of the best ways to build your customer base is through word of mouth, and a referral program can incentivize your audience to guide new customers your way.

5. Host a contest

Offer free products and services, discounts and special prizes to people who participate and win contests. You could create a post that announces the giveaway and encourages your audience to share your contest post, follow your social media and tag friends. Then, you could randomly select participants who meet the requirements. This option builds engagement among your current followers and can bring new followers who may become customers in the future.

6. Connect with your community

One of the best ways to build brand awareness is to participate in local events, sponsor sports teams, volunteer and network with other businesses in your area. Local businesses can then provide customer referrals.