How to increase brand recognition

In this article, you’ll gain a better understanding of what brand recognition is. You’ll also learn why brand recognition is so important and how to differentiate it from brand awareness and brand recall. Once you have a clear understanding of what brand recognition is and isn’t, you’ll be equipped to launch key marketing strategies to help you boost your own footprint in the marketplace. In other words, you’ll learn how to build brand recognition.

Having good brand recognition means being able to quickly capture consumers' attention and keep them interested so they remain familiar with your brand. Brand recognition ensures that your business is connecting with its buying audience and making a good impression. This is done with audio and visual marketing cues that elevate the product from the rest. The type of packaging, even colour choices, commercial taglines and jingles all play a role in brand recognition. 

When buyers are familiar with a brand, they’ll either be more trusting or sceptical. It’s most beneficial for your business if the customer trusts your brand. In this way, you’ll be able to introduce new products and services they're most likely to buy because they already trust the business you're currently selling. 

So, why is brand recognition important? Brand recognition strengthens the buyer and consumer relationship. The more you can reassure customers that your product is the brand to trust, the stronger your brand recognition is likely to become. Having strong brand recognition improves user experience, increases customer trust and reduces price sensitivity. 

Strong brand recognition ensures that consumers adopt a trusting perspective toward your brand. If buyers don’t trust your brand, they're not going to buy your product or service. Buyers need to be able to believe that your product does what your business promises it will do, and if it doesn’t, that they’ll be compensated in some way, whether that means getting a replacement, store credit or their money back. A good way to increase customer trust is to offer such guarantees up front. This gives customers assurance that their consumer needs will be met when buying from your business. 

Presenting a product or service into the marketplace that meets and even exceeds customer satisfaction is part of the marketing stages of brand recognition. Higher-quality products are typically priced at a premium. Many consumers are willing to pay a premium cost for quality products and services. For instance, smartphones can be purchased for as little as £18, but iPhones cost from £449 to £1,749. On the other hand, brand recognition isn’t always associated with high-quality products. Brand recognition is about familiarity. So consumers who frequently shop at Asda may be more acquainted with their generic brand, Just Essentials by Asda. Learn more about private label brand awareness. 

Remaining consistent with quality and exceptional service of your business can help increase customer retention. Loyal customers will most probably refer your business to a friend. While marketing and advertising can definitely help with brand recognition, positive customer testimonials can go a long way. 

Finding out whether consumers in your industry are aware of your business and how they might be interacting with your brand can be useful. Track consumers' brand perception of your company today.  You can also discover how well your brand image is working. Tracking your brand reputation will also help you optimise marketing efforts. 

Brand awareness and brand recognition are two separate marketing concepts. Both approaches are critical to building brand recognition. This is why it’s important to know the differences between the two.

Brand recognition recognises that your brand exists based on marketing efforts related to imaging, such as logos, packaging, slogans, taglines and jingles. It’s also important that consumers are aware your business exists. If they’re not aware of your business, then they won’t be able to recognise it, regardless of how pretty the package or catchy the jingle. In other words, brand awareness is about how familiar consumers are with your product in the industry. It’s consequently related to how well your business is recognised based on your business or product's audio, visual and physical appearance. 

Having consumers aware of your business is a good first step, but it won’t be enough to contend with competitors. Although buyers typically look for affordable quality products and services, they won’t always select them upon first purchase. This could be due to brand recognition. 

In a competitive market, visual branding can make all the difference between a customer buying your product or the competitors’. Elevate brand awareness into brand recognition by focusing on the right audience and sharing why you’re different from competing products. Also, be relatable and consistent with your messaging. 

Target an audience demographic who might be interested in the products and services you offer. It's likely that targeting outside this demographic will be a waste of time and money. Market to an audience who has bought your competitors' products, the products within your industry. Targeting an audience based on geography can also boost brand recognition.  

Here is where you need to explain to your audience why and how your product or service is the best choice. Buyers are bombarded with a wide array of options. Often, they're just looking for that one thing that makes a product stand out from all the rest. This is why visual perception is important. 

This is where the audio part of marketing can come in handy. Creating catchy taglines and jingles in commercials and promotions is an easy way to keep your business name on a consumer’s mind. Just like you memorise the words to your favourite song, consistent marketing works the same way. Think of how you instantly know the words to commercial jingles. That's because it’s repetitive. You’re not aware how often you hear it until your memory is triggered with something that associates itself with the product. This creates a familiarity that works towards establishing trust. Pairing that with good visual packaging will influence the consumer to buy your goods.   

The way you present your business to the world is important. Hardly anyone enjoys being sold to when they’re not in the mood to shop. Speak your consumers' language by identifying a problem your business can solve. Presenting a problem that potential customers might have establishes a good rapport with consumers. It sends the message that you understand their problems and you’re here to help. Get started with these five tips to increase your brand awareness.   

Brand recognition is also known as aided brand recall because it’s often associated with brand recall. Just as brand awareness is different from brand recognition, brand recall also differs from brand recognition. 

Brand recall is the instant recollection of certain goods and services based on that product’s category. While brand recognition focuses on making a product stand out among the rest, brand recall is how easily consumers remember your product or service. For instance, Doritos used its iconic red and blue colour brand packaging to repurpose its ads without including the product name. They called it “anti-advertising”. They even produced blue and red bags without the label. The ad depicted a teenager holding them accompanied with the tagline, “Another Level”. 

To achieve brand recognition, consumers should immediately think of your product or service before even being presented with options. If you’re craving crisps and thinking about Walkers, this is the result of brand recognition. If you thought of Doritos, that’s an example of strong brand recognition because Doritos are corn chips and not made with potatoes. Still, the two products share the same industry. 

To achieve strong brand recognition, you must be unique, commit to market-leading customer service and produce thought-leadership content. Next, you’ll need to establish a clear purpose for your brand and deliver what you promise to consumers. You’ll also need to be diverse in how you reach your customers. Utilising online marketing, make sure you engage them across many channels. Your product and service must prove to be valuable and exceed customer expectations. 

The following steps will help you build and increase brand recognition: 

To grow and sustain customer retention, you must always be relatable. Remember to stay agile and flexible so you can position your business to shift with any industry trends. By doing this, you’ll establish a community of trusting and loyal customers. Also, your business will have a more influential impact and possibly a greater purpose for meeting consumer needs. 

Being unique is about presenting a product that’s different from competitors. What makes Pringles crisps different from all the other crisps in the market? The answer lies in the packaging. While most crisps are sold in bags, Pringles crisps are sold in stacks packaged in a resealable tube, reducing the amount of breakage.  

Study what’s working well and not so well for your competitor in the area of customer service, and learn from it. Uber sets their product up where customers can rate their experience the moment they reach their destination. You can also learn from your customers by asking them what they liked and didn’t like about their buying experience. Here, you can discover what could be done better to make their next purchase a more satisfying experience. Get valuable customer insights today.

Providing quality content about your brand and how it relates to your industry educates consumers about your brand and product. Publishing blogs, cases studies and informative guides can also establish you as an expert in your industry. Consumers are more likely to trust experts when it comes to committing to a purchase.

Building brand recognition means establishing an objective. Your brand should have a purpose beyond solving a particular problem. Your brand’s purpose needs to exceed expectations on a make-the-world-a-better-place type of initiative. In other words, how can your brand contribute to society as a whole. One example of this is Starbucks, which launched an initiative phasing out plastic straws to draw attention to the pollution of and harm to marine life. Another is Tony's Chocolonely, which positions itself as a chocolate manufacturer dedicated to making 100% slave-free the norm in the chocolate industry. This type of brand focuses on eliminating modern slavery and illegal child labour on farms in West Africa.  

When marketing your product, choose your words wisely. Make sure that your product says what it will do. It also helps to make the buying experience as pleasant as possible. This means ensuring that logistics are running smoothly so buyers are receiving their goods in a short period of time. Amazon is a great example of this. They offer a paid subscription service, Amazon Prime, that offers expedited free shipping and handling. 

Use your brand to develop and sustain a buyer and seller relationship. Social media platforms are the best online tool to connect with customers. They're a clever way to consistently place your product or services in front of loyal customers. Engaging your audience through social media platforms is also a great way to post helpful consumer and industry-related tips.

IKEA launched a campaign promoting a new store in Sweden by posting pictures of their showrooms and incentivising the first person to tag the post to win a particular item. Offering valuable information that’s free can help gain consumer trust.  It’s also the fastest way to get targeted customer feedback.

Establish your brand as the official industry expert by providing useful information that consumers and business partners can use. Start a blog on your website. Podcasts are useful for targeting busy professionals who commute. Create webinars. Organise a conference. Create a YouTube channel for product demonstration. Use Facebook or Instagram to stream live product demonstrations and interviews with other experts in your industry. Shopify (an e-commerce platform) created a YouTube channel that demonstrates ways in which entrepreneurs can increase their sales.

Keeping abreast of current events is an easy way to prove your value and increase brand recognition. It affirms that your brand is relevant and cognisant of market trends. The Coronavirus pandemic affected work and school life. Being sensitive to these issues, we created survey templates to accommodate the ongoing crisis. Collecting customer and employee feedback helps pinpoint core workflow problems because finding the problem is part of the solution.  

Building trust and credibility takes time. Here is where you can implement your business’ long-term goals. Where do you want your business to be in five years? Ten years? Twenty? Make a list. Next, create a short-term business goal. What do you want your business to look like in 12 months? What’s your 30-day goal? Make a quarterly list of goals that work towards the long-term goals. Once you’ve done that, then you can start building brand awareness that can ultimately lead to brand recognition. Think about Apple, a technology company that started off building desktop computers. With the late founder Steve Jobs as the company’s visionary, he envisioned ways to make consumers’ lifestyle easier with his products.

Never get too comfortable with how successful your brand recognition might be performing. Industry trends and sudden shifts in the market can change all of that. As a business, you should never be afraid of change. Be ready to reposition your marketing tactics as many times as needed. Remember, there’s always another business trying to outsell the competition. A good way to monitor your brand recognition is by learning how to ask the right questions when conducting market research. Start learning the survey terminology you’ll need to craft strategic questions that will deliver the best possible results. 

The best way to improve brand recognition is to build a community of consumers who have purchased your product or service, but you’ll need to go beyond that and attract consumers who have purchased your competitors’ business. You should also include business partners who supplement your business, such as advertisers and anything logistics-related. Communities can easily be built up online through social media accounts. Here, you can get a broader reach of consumers. Still, building grassroots communities offers a more personal touch. 

Sponsoring events, volunteering at non-profits and participating at community events with the proper branding will help increase brand recognition. The sports industry uses its athletes to volunteer in charities, get involved with community events and endorse products that reflect its own branding image. In this way, the business is finding other ways to connect with potential customers.

Having a greater purpose should not be confused with a clear brand purpose, although, the two benefit one another. Your brand needs to have a greater purpose that reflects your own core values. Because of shifting marketing trends, supply and demand, competitor pricing and position, and other unforeseeable challenges, your business could perform really well one year and then not so well the following year. This is where you’ll need to understand the greater purpose of your brand so you can identify any business opportunities. In this way, you’ll be able to reposition your entire business to meet another type of consumer demand. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson gained recognition as a professional wrestler. He then shifted his career into film, broadening his audience outside of wrestling and becoming one of the top five most-followed Instagram influencers and philanthropists. 

Identify your brand’s greater purpose by asking: What is your business objective? How does it relate to consumers? Establishing a company mission statement is the best way to lay the foundation for this process.  

Understanding the difference between brand recognition and brand recall will help you create savvy marketing campaigns.  It will also help you think more strategically and get consumers more familiar with every aspect of your brand on an auditory and visual perspective. You’ll have a clearer objective on influencing consumers to immediately think of your brand whenever the industry category is brought to mind.

Knowing how to build brand recognition will help you know the difference between brand awareness and brand recognition. It will help you discover how relevant your business is in your industry. You’ll be able to proficiently strategise a campaign to improve your presence in the marketplace. Explore market research solutions to understand consumers’ perspective on brand names in your industry. Get a better idea of how well your brand is performing with Brand Tracker to optimise and increase your brand recognition.