Brand Awareness Marketing: What Is It and How Does It Work?

by Frankie Karrer

8 Min Read

At MNTN, we understand that brands value tangible results over everything, which is why we pride ourselves on being champions of performance marketing. Nevertheless, we’re also fully aware of the undeniable power of brand awareness and its role in fueling business growth. Our forte may lie in driving performance you can measure, but we still appreciate the art of building brand recognition.

Let’s take a deep dive into the ins and outs of brand awareness campaigns and the benefits they provide.

What Is Brand Awareness?

A company’s brand awareness is the extent to which consumers recognize and remember that brand. In other words, garnering high brand awareness means that the logo, slogan, and other public-facing elements of your business are immediately recognizable.

Generating brand awareness is the first step in the sales funnel. Once you get on someone’s radar, you can nurture them using Connected TV (CTV), social media ads, and other content channels.

How Does Brand Awareness Work?

Brand awareness works by introducing potential customers to your business in a way that’s memorable and positive, setting a great first impression and then proceeding to interact with them in a consistent fashion. The goal is to turn your brand into a familiar and trusted name.

For example, think about a commercial you may have seen for a new business in your area. You might have never heard of the brand beforehand, but because their ad had a catchy jingle and a vibrant logo, you’ll remember the first interaction and the positive emotions it elicited the next time you see content from that brand. That’s brand awareness in action.

Brand Awareness Benefits

Investing in brand awareness marketing can unlock all sorts of benefits for your business, including all of the following:

Enhanced Credibility and Trust

Building brand awareness fosters trust and credibility. The more a customer “knows” your brand, the more they will trust it and the content it puts out. A well-recognized brand often feels more reliable to consumers in a way that is similar to choosing a popular and well-reviewed restaurant over an unknown establishment.

Increased Customer Loyalty

Brand awareness and customer loyalty go hand in hand. Greater customer familiarity with your company and its values correlates with a stronger sense of commitment.

That said, loyalty does not bloom overnight. Roughly 88% of consumers say they’ll have to make three or more purchases from a company before they feel dedicated to it.

Greater Competitive Edge in the Market

Creating a recognizable brand and maximizing its public awareness can give you a definitive edge in your market. Investopedia suggests brand-loyal customers may make fewer total purchases than new customers, but the profit margins on their purchases are much larger.

In addition, it’s far cheaper to retain existing customers than earn new ones. According to Forbes, it can cost four to five times more to acquire new customers compared to the cost of retaining your current ones. As such, when you build awareness and loyalty, you’ll save a bundle on marketing.

Brand Awareness Campaign Strategies

There’s no denying that building brand awareness is important, but a question arises in knowing what the most effective types of brand awareness marketing are. And unfortunately, there are no one-size-fits-all answers.

Instead, you’ll need to tailor your brand awareness campaigns to align with the unique needs of your business and the preferences of your target audience.

Here are a few strategies to use as inspiration:

Social media platforms are great for increasing brand visibility and engagement, but you need to make sure that you focus on the platforms that resonate most with your core audience.

Content Marketing

Create valuable content that intrigues and educates your audience. Avoid getting too sales-y and instead focus on providing value.

Influencer Partnerships

Partnering with social media influencers can go a long way in amplifying your brand awareness, reach, and credibility.

Search Engine Optimization

Optimizing your online content for search engines can help your brand rank higher among relevant search results. The goal is to make your site as easy to find as possible.

Paid Advertising (Online and Offline)

Make use of paid channels to reach a broader audience and enhance your brand recognition. Google Ads and Connected TV are a couple great options that allow you to target niche markets.

Public Relations and Media Outreach

Build relationships with media outlets and community organizations to promote your brand’s stories. Doing right by the community you operate in will go far in boosting brand awareness and loyalty.

Referral Programs

Encourage word-of-mouth promotion through customer referrals, and — where practical — offer rewards for referrals to turn your loyal customers into brand ambassadors.

Sponsorships and Event Marketing

Gaining visibility by way of sponsoring events is a great means of connecting with customers on a deeper level. Consider sponsoring a little league team or fundraising event to get the word out about your brand.

Email Marketing Campaigns

Use email campaigns to nurture leads and keep your brand at the top of customer’s minds.

CTV and OTT Advertising

Leverage the power of CTV advertising and over-the-top (OTT) advertising to reach targeted audiences with engaging content. You can pinpoint specific communities that reach out to custom segments on a national scale.

How to Measure Brand Awareness

Your first brand awareness campaign isn’t going to be perfect — none are — but the goal is to get a little better and more efficient each time. To do that, you’ll need to monitor the impacts of each campaign so you can identify what worked and what didn’t. Measuring brand awareness can be tough as it involves sifting through who simply saw your content and who actually engaged with it.

As a result, measuring brand awareness requires using a few different measurement tools.

Surveys and Customer Feedback

Gathering direct feedback from customers through surveys and feedback forms is one of the best ways of assessing brand recognition. It’s an approach that allows you to interact directly with your audience, and there’s no one better to ask than the people you are trying to reach.

That said, you’ll need to format your surveys to optimize participation. While it can be tempting, don’t ask too many questions. Keep surveys simple and easy to complete by limiting them to a few questions each.

Analyzing engagement metrics on your website and social platforms offers plenty of information regarding brand reach and impact. You can track everything from page views to shares, even the time spent on the site; together, these metrics provide a clear picture of how engaging your brand is online.

Additionally, every time you make adjustments to your brand awareness campaign, notice how your actions change engagement. Find out whether your actions have led to you getting more views or engagement falling off. Optimizing your strategy will require diligence and a bit of trial and error, but it is a worthwhile endeavor.

Branded Search Volume Data

Monitoring how often your brand’s name or related keywords are looked up on search engines can provide a clear indication of your brand awareness levels, as well as the visibility and searchability of your brand overall. An increase in search volume typically indicates growing interest and recognition.

Brand Recall and Recognition Studies

Conducting studies to measure brand recall and recognition can also reveal how memorable your brand is to consumers. These studies typically involve asking participants to recollect a brand from memory, and the results can help you understand whether your branding and marketing efforts are making you stand out.

Net Promoter Score

Your company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a powerful tool to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction, both of which have a huge impact on your overall brand health. Your NPS provides a straightforward metric that reflects satisfaction and the chances that customers will promote your business.

Brand Awareness Examples

Brand awareness campaigns come in all shapes and sizes. Spotify, for instance, is a prime example of the versatility of brand awareness marketing. The company created a cross-platform application and prioritized accessibility, allowing it to reach more consumers at once. And once it gets its customers on board, Spotify delivers personalized recommendations to keep them engaged.

Similarly, many of Coca-Cola’s countless brand awareness campaigns over the years have been home runs. One of its most successful was the “Share a Coke” campaign, during which Coke printed hundreds of variations of its iconic labels, using different common names and specific phrases, to put on their bottles and cans. The effort encouraged people to buy Coca-Cola products not just for themselves but for their friends and family as well.

CTV Advertising Takes Brand Awareness to the Next Level

Connected TV advertising — which combines the same broad reach of traditional TV advertising with the targeting capabilities of digital — is revolutionizing how companies build brand awareness.

MNTN focuses on making CTV a performance-driven channel, blending awareness with measurable outcomes. By working with us, you’ll enjoy access to premium CTV inventory, automated optimization tools, industry-leading attribution and reporting functionalities, and pinpoint-audience-targeting capabilities.

Our CTV platform puts the power in your hands, letting brands go beyond awareness and drive real results for a full-funnel marketing approach. When you need campaigns that deliver, MNTN helps you measure what matters and target your ideal customer.

Book a demo today to get started.

Brand Awareness Marketing: Final Thoughts

Consumer attention is the ultimate currency, and brand awareness is the first step to grabbing and holding that engagement. MNTN may be rooted in performance marketing, but our platform easily ensures that your brand isn’t just seen, but remembered.