3 Reasons No One Knows Your Brand (And How to Change That) - OneIMS
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One of the most important tasks involved in running any business is attracting new leads and converting them into customers. However, in order to begin drawing in leads, they first need to know who you are. If your potential clients and customers aren’t aware of your brand, there’s no hope they’ll purchase from you.

There are many reasons your brand might be ignored by your target audience. However, with the right strategy changes, you can improve your online image and start getting noticed by your ideal clients. Through improving your social media strategy, developing your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and creating shareable content, you can effectively increase your brand awareness.

Let’s take a look at a few of the biggest reasons your brand is still unknown, and talk about what you can do to change that!

 

Key Takeaways:

  1. An engaging social media strategy enables you to create conversations with target audience members, improving their awareness about your brand.
  2. A strong SEO strategy is one of the best ways to increase your brand’s visibility.
  3. Shareable content can encourage your target audience to give you ‘free’ marketing.

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1. Your Social Media Strategy Isn’t Engaging

No matter the demographic you’re trying to attract, chances are they spend a lot of time on social media. While some platforms are more popular with certain age groups and demographics than others, there’s a social media site that fits the needs of just about everyone. Since your audience members already spend so much time there, social media can be a great way to connect with new customers and clients.

However, many companies fail to acknowledge the ‘social’ part of social media. Instead of creating engaging and interesting posts, they simply send out links to their content—never really considering how they’re interacting with their followers and leads. Without an engaging strategy, it can be difficult to build awareness and excitement about your brand.

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It’s important to ensure that your social media strategy provides opportunities for you to engage directly with your audience, as in the above example from Buffer. Not only does this mean creating relevant and interesting content they will want to share and comment on, but also responding to their activity. As a company, you should be pursuing conversations with your target audience, as well as liking and commenting on what they have to say.

2. Your SEO Strategy Isn’t Successful

When a modern consumer needs to solve a problem or purchase a product, the first place they will typically look is on a search engine. In order to appear within their results, your company needs to have a strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. If you’re not showing up on the first page in relevant searches (and in some cases, close to the top of the first page), you can be easily ignored.

Unsuccessful SEO strategies are usually the result of poor planning and practices. If you’re struggling to see your content reach the top of a search engine results list, it may be because you’re selecting keywords that aren’t relevant to your audience or are already heavily saturated with information. You may also be breaking one of Google’s rules, such as by using keyword stuffing, which can penalize your website and push you further down the list.

In order to improve your SEO strategy and start making the top page of results, you’ll want to do proper keyword research to ensure that your content is targeting the right topics. You’ll also want to stay up-to-date on what Google and other search engines are looking for in the content they promote. Finally, high-quality content that your audience enjoys can increase your SEO and make your material more visible.

3. Your Content Isn’t Shareable

When a customer shares your content with their network, they’re essentially giving you free marketing. Since consumers trust and value their friends’ and families’ opinions, they will be more likely to click through to your content if someone they know posts it on social media. However, if what you’re putting out there isn’t highly shareable, you could be missing out on those potential leads.

Non-shareable content is typically uninteresting, generic, or poorly made. It doesn’t dive too deep into its topic, and fails to really consider what the target audience is looking for. Instead, it is quickly slapped together and posted without much research or thought. This kind of content is usually ignored.

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You can make your content more shareable, like this example blog post from HubSpot, by considering what kind of information your audience is looking for, what questions they need to have answered, and what content they’ve engaged heavily with in the past. Including interesting images or engaging videos can also improve your chances of having your content shared online.

Bonus: You’re Not Connecting With Influencers

Some companies fail to project authority to their target audience. This can make it difficult for potential leads to trust what you’re saying, causing them to skip over your posts and other content. In order to increase your credibility, you can use an influencer to bridge the gap between you and your target audience.

Influencer marketing works similarly to word-of-mouth marketing. Since we value the opinions of those we trust, an influencer can endorse your brand to their community, establishing confidence in your company. If they say that they use your products or services, their community will want to do the same.

To create a connection with an influencer, you’ll want to begin by starting a conversation, whether through email, social media, or even in person. Influencer marketing relies heavily on trust and relationships. Once you have a strong connection established, the influencer will feel comfortable sharing your content, responding to your articles, or even creating their own branded posts featuring your products or services.

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Conclusion

Improving your brand awareness enables you to attract more leads, who may eventually become high-paying customers and clients. As the first step in getting new business, having a strong brand awareness strategy is incredibly important for growing your company.

Let’s recap the four ways you can improve awareness for your brand:

  1. Focus on engaging with your social media audience.
  2. Improve your SEO strategy so you get noticed in Google searches.
  3. Create shareable content that your audience loves.
  4. Connect with influencers to expand your reach.

How do you think these changes will improve your brand awareness? Let us know in the comments section below!

Image Source: Pexels.

Written By Samuel Thimothy

As the Chief Growth Officer, I provide leadership, direction and resource stewardship to the organization’s sales and marketing function. I also collaborate with our digital marketing strategy team in developing and executing growth marketing campaigns for our loyal clients.

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