Many business owners think success lies in offering products and services that people want or need — and are willing to pay for. While this is true on the surface, the real key to your business success comes down to brand awareness.
After all, if customers aren’t aware of your brand, or if they lack confidence in it, then they can’t or won’t patronize your business — no matter how amazing your products and services are.
The lack of brand strategy for your self-storage business means missing opportunities to reach your target audience and establish relationships that hold brand awareness.
Whether you’re looking for a comprehensive guide to brand awareness or answers to specific questions like, “Which targeting option is best for achieving brand awareness?” you’ve come to the right place. Here’s a closer look at what brand awareness is and why it matters, along with tips for boosting brand awareness in order to reach your target audience.
What Is Brand Awareness?
In order to understand brand awareness, it’s first important to understand what a brand is. Your brand isn’t your business. Nor is it the products and services you offer. Rather, it’s the overall perception of your business that consumers have.
Brands like Apple, Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson, Google, McDonald’s, Amazon, and Netflix are often heralded as the best brands in the world. This is because mere mention of them doesn’t just bring to mind the products and services they sell. Rather, these brands evoke powerful consumer emotions.
Which begs the question: What makes some brands more powerful than others? A large part of it comes down to brand awareness.
According to Investopedia, brand awareness is “a marketing term that describes the degree of consumer recognition of a product by its name.”
And it matters a lot for one simple reason above all else: When consumers are choosing between a product they know and one they don’t know, they’ll almost always go with the familiar one. The takeaway for self-storage business owners? If you want to beat your competition when it comes to attracting new customers, increasing brand awareness needs to be a top priority.
Why Is Brand Awareness Important?
We already covered the overarching reason why brand awareness matters. Here, we’ll hone in on the specifics, including the following results you can look forward to when you amp up your brand awareness initiatives:
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It fosters trust.
Trust and authenticity are more important than ever to today’s discerning consumers. While earning their trust takes time and effort, it’s worthwhile: Once you’ve facilitated this bond, you’ll see payoffs in the form of customer loyalty and repeat purchases.
Just like people need to build trust with people; so do brands. A consistent brand strategy can help you accomplish this.
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It creates association.
When you’ve got a question, you probably don’t think twice before opening Google. This is association: it simply means that when people think of a problem or challenge, they think of a particular brand as the solution. This is brand awareness in action. It subconsciously links needs and solutions with particular brands.
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It nurtures brand equity.
Consumer experiences and perceptions of your brand add up to “brand equity,” which encapsulates your brand’s value. When you have positive brand equity, you can look forward to many benefits, including higher perceived value and the higher prices that go along with them, higher stock prices, more opportunities for business expansion, and greater social impact resulting from your “brand name” value.
What Does Brand Awareness Do?
Still not convinced that brand awareness is all that it’s cracked up to be? These statistics speak for themselves:
- It takes an average of 5 to 7 impressions to get customers to remember your brand.
- Presenting your brand consistently across all channels and platforms can increase revenue by nearly 25 percent.
- 64 percent and 68 percent of women and men, respectively, have felt emotionally connected with brands.
- 59 percent of consumers prefer to buy products from brands they trust.
- 77 percent of marketers believe branding is essential to growth.
- 82 percent of investors say name recognition plays a big part in their investment decisions.
- Having an amazing brand can reduce hiring and training expenses by up to 50 percent.
- 69 percent of marketing teams are working on employer brand strategies.
- More than 70 percent of brand managers think audience building is more important than sales conversions.
- 43 percent of customers spend more on brands to which they’re loyal.
- 89 percent of consumers remain loyal to brands with shared values.
And these statistics are just the start. A vast body of evidence points to the tremendous value of brand awareness for gaining exposure, attracting customers, and generating leads.
Tips for Building Brand Awareness for Your Self-Storage Business
Strong brand awareness doesn’t happen on its own. It takes cohesive planning, including the following tips:
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Discern what makes you different.
Brand awareness hinges on the things that separate your brand from the rest. What characteristics make your self-storage business different from the one up the road?
Identifying this can help you identify your unique selling proposition and weave it into your brand strategy in order to connect with consumers.
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Know your audience.
If you don’t know who your audience is, how can you build brand awareness in a way that commands their attention? When it comes to closing the gap between your company and your customers, a strong brand can be the bridge.
Knowing your audience also helps you target your digital marketing efforts to their specific habits and interests. On that note, there are several approaches for targeting ads to raise brand awareness. These include custom affinity targeting, demographics-based targeting, remarketing, and custom intent.
The answer to the question, “Which targeting option is best for achieving brand awareness?” is not straightforward, however. Rather, each has its own set of pros and cons depending on your specific objectives.
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Be consistent.
Familiarity is an inherent component of branding. Every contact you have with your customers is a chance to boost brand awareness — but only if you’re consistent in your efforts across everything from voice to messaging.
While this can be challenging when you’re communicating with them across multiple channels, it’s vitally important. Without consistency, you won’t build trust or loyalty. In fact, it can have the opposite effect.
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Share your story.
Storytelling is a powerful marketing tactic. When visitors arrive at your website, they’re looking for opportunities to connect with your brand. A well-articulated “About Us” page is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate what makes your brand different. The same goes for your blog.
One last thing to keep in mind? It’s not for nothing that we talk about “building” a brand. Establishing brand awareness is not a one-off enterprise. Rather, it’s a process that takes planning, patience, time, and effort.
Which raises yet another question: How do you know if your brand awareness measures are working? In our digital age, it’s easier than ever thanks to the availability of analytics, which can be used for testing and measuring. That being said, you’ll need skills, knowledge, and experience to plan, implement, and maintain your brand awareness campaign.
Unfortunately, many self-storage businesses simply lack the resources to add these tasks to their already-full plates. That’s where digital marketing agencies like The Light Digital come in. Our skilled team of dedicated digital marketers is laser-focused on how to help your business make the most of online marketing, including helping you understand which targeting option is best for achieving brand awareness.
To start your self-storage business’s journey to more powerful brand awareness and all the competitive advantages that go along with it, contact us today.
