What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness indicates how familiar your ideal customers are with your company. Building strong brand awareness is key to turning curious shoppers into loyal customers. It’s especially important to create a strategy that will increase awareness when your company is young. Generating buzz and excitement around a new brand is a key benefit of partnering with a public relations team.

While brand recognition on a surface level is the first step in a customer’s awareness journey, integrating your brand into the buyer’s lifestyle is the ultimate goal. Consider the brands below that are largely considered a lifestyle by brand loyalists:

Apple

Apple customers expect products that are sleek, innovative, and intuitive. Whether they walk into an Apple store or visit the digital experience, customers encounter a stylish and minimalist environment. If customers were only after a smartphone, laptop, or earbuds, they could choose from a myriad of tech brands. Their desire is to experience the Apple lifestyle.

Four Seasons

Four Seasons is one of the most recognized brands in the world of international luxury. The brand sets the expectation in hospitality service and accommodations innovation. When customers book an experience with the Four Seasons brand, there’s an expectation of an unforgettable experience.

Peloton

There’s working out, then there’s owning a Peloton. The technology that powers Peloton equipment makes for an engaging at-home fitness routine. Customers are loyalists to the brand, finding an online community for support and engaging with instructors during live classes.

Improve brand awareness with earned media

Earned media was once restrained to newspaper articles, local television segments, or magazine mentions about your brand. Now, earned media increases brand awareness on a seemingly endless number of platforms. From social media and blogs to YouTube videos and influencer praise, earned media can be harnessed by the best PR agencies.

To simplify the meaning of earned media, let’s define the term as any content or material about your brand that you didn’t pay for. A third party must publish the content for it to fall into the “earned” category, and when you partner with Corelini PR, our team serves as the vessel to get your story to the best-fit outlet. 

Examples of earned media:

• Customer social media post referencing your brand or product
• Product review on YouTube
• Influencer captured on video/photo using your product
• Media (press) coverage of your brand
• Mention in a “best of” or “top brands” blog

Some of the most famous examples of earned media include brands that make Oprah’s Favorite Things list or when a brand is featured on the entrepreneurial television show Shark Tank.

Because nearly 4 out of 5 customers will make a purchase based on someone’s recommendation or a positive online review, earned media has the potential to exponentially grow your brand awareness.

Benefits of brand awareness

Build trust

Trust is built through brand awareness. The story customers understand about your brand is largely within your control. An experienced tech PR agency shares your story across platforms where your customers engage. Partnering with the right journalists, publicists, and influencers is how an agency gets your brand in front of the right people.

Increase referral business

When customers recognize your brand and associate it with a positive reputation, they’re more likely to refer a friend or leave a positive online review. In fact, 83% of customers will refer your business if they have a positive experience. And nearly as many (79%) trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Increase brand equity

When there’s a higher demand for your brand, you have the ability to present a higher price point. But in order to build momentum toward a high demand, potential customers need to know your story. An experienced tech PR agency consistently promotes positive experiences with your brand to build curiosity.

Creating interest in your brand doesn’t come with a few digital ads on Instagram. If you expect to increase awareness, partner with a team of strategists who create multiple, simultaneous efforts for your brand on a variety of effective platforms.