Community | People

How Can Small Businesses Increase Brand Awareness?

Jan 19, 2021 | Konark Ogra

Covid has helped gain sympathy for small businesses and it's important to reinvent the supply chain and look to become a Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand. Switch to a digitally native business.

As small businesses are gaining in popularity, this is your chance to get on the boat and start your own business! 

However, what can you do to increase brand awareness? What strategies can you use as a small business?

Here are 4 ways you can increase brand awareness as a small firm:

1. Focus on the ‘Why’, ‘How’ and ‘What’

Let consumers know the reason why you are doing what you are doing as a business. When doing this, focus on empathy and the difference your business makes to the local community and the environment.

You need to remember that you are in a highly competitive consumer market and that consumers are becoming more and more careful and conscious about where they buy from.

Explicitly tell them about the sustainable practices you have incorporated in the entire supply chain and let them know about your values. You could do this by writing an Impact Report

If you haven't adopted sustainable practices, think about strategies you can use to become more sustainable as a business in a unique way. 

Remember that there are a lot more businesses selling similar items, so give customers the reason why they should choose you over them! Tell them about your Unique Selling Points!

2. Use technology that helps your business transform towards becoming omni-channel


Adopting an omni-channel sales approach is essential nowadays as it gives customers a better experience.

 

This is why it is important that you use the right technologies to adopt such approach.

 

You should remember that the majority of customers purchases in a combination of different ways. This includes buying online, buying in person or buying with their mobiles. You should cater for all these methods and ensure that you provide the best service in all channels.

 

You could do this by making your online website mobile friendly or by personalising customer experience by allowing customers to sign up and create membership accounts.

 

You can then gather this data to enhance customer experience. This could be done by giving personalised discounts for members, such as special offers for their birthdays!

 

Another thing you can do is be engaged with customers and ensure that you are available to them in all channels. Make sure you interact with people as great communication leads to questions being answered which equals to more sales!

 

Also, in terms of technologies to adopt, you can consider adding digital payment options in store, using recommendation engines to predict what customers will be interested in by analysing their past purchases or using a headless content management system.


3. Use storytelling as e-commerce is all about it

 

Storytelling is really important to get your brand name known. 

You could do this with content such as blogs, videos or images. 

You could also do this by joining local events or industry related podcasts and activities so that you can gain trust and can start to be known by others. 

4. Align business outreach with the latest changes in the algorithms (update timings, address, etc)


Big tech is looking to help local businesses reach local communities, in sync with the consumer sentiment, they are aligning business outreach with the most recent algorithm adjustments (such as updating timings, address, etc). 

This can be seen in Figure 2, where we see Google recommending small businesses by improving their algorithm. 

Fig 1: The Golden Circle by Simon Sinek provides a framework upon which small businesses can build, movements can be led, and people can be inspired.

Big tech as some changes where they are offering stronger visibility for local small businesses 

Fig 2: How Google is changing its algorithm to help Local businesses connect to consumers.


Conclusion

Overall, there are different ways you can use to increase brand awareness as a small business.

However, we recommend using all these methods together as they are all very important.

At the start it can be difficult to get your name out there given the competition. However, with the right approach and determination, you will certainly be able to get there sooner than you think!

We hope this can help you to start with! Contact us to know more about what we do or to let us know your thoughts on this blog! 

Alternatively, since you are here already, why don't you check out this really useful guide on how to find trending products to sell on your online store                                                    

I Understand

By continuing to use this site you consent to the use of cookies.

Know More.
X