How To Build Brand Awareness From Scratch
So you launched your sustainable fashion brand and now you need to build brand awareness… If you’re feeling lost and like you don’t even know where to start, we’re here to support you! We’ve got you covered with this post all about getting people familiar with your business!
If you haven’t heard the term brand awareness before, it essentially means the extent to which someone is aware of your brand or company. For example, when Patagonia first started, a lot of people didn’t know about the brand. Likely when someone heard “Patagonia” their first instinct might’ve been - oh the place? But over time, more and more people knew about the brand, what Patagonia stood for and they became a household name in the sustainable fashion space.
GOLDEN QUESTION: How does a brand build that household name and become “well-known” when they’re starting from scratch?
This is something we’ve worked with our clients on and the first thing we always say is that it’s going to take time and won’t happen overnight. A lot of “overnight successes” have been working behind the scenes for years, but when they become “discovered” overnight, people think that it just happened. So the first thing you need to remember is that it will take time to build your business into a big brand that is easily recognizable.
However, there are some things you need to do to build your brand awareness, and it begins with determining your target customer. You need to understand your target customers so that you know how they will find out about you. Typically, most avenues will be social media (organic & paid), influencer marketing, partnerships, press and affiliate marketing. So, let’s break each of these down…
Avenue #1: Social Media Organic
Organic means spending no money, so if you manage your social media and content strategy correctly, you can successfully grow your account and increase brand awareness that way. Still, always make sure that the channel you focus on is where your ideal customers are. We once had a client on Tik Tok because the platform was “blowing up,” but they were not getting any sales from it because that’s not where their target customer was.
On the other hand, we worked with a sustainable wedding gown brand and this client saw amazing success on Pinterest because her ideal customer (brides) were always on Pinterest pinning things and getting inspiration. This just goes to show that once you figure out who your ideal customer is and where they are on social media, your brand needs to be there!
It’s also important to keep your social media strategy focused on a few platforms. You simply don’t have the time to be everywhere, especially if you’re just starting.
TIP: Pick 2-3 social media platforms MAX and go all out. Once you get big enough and can hire a social media manager or marketing manager, then you expand to more platforms.
Avenue #2: Social Media Paid (Digital Advertising)
For a lot of direct-to-consumer e-commerce companies, digital advertising is their bread and butter. They do a lot of Facebook ads and rely on that to grow their brand and get sales. However, this is an expensive approach, as you’re likely going to spend tens of thousands of dollars in advertising and at one point you’re also going to hit a ceiling in terms of your ad ROI.
That being said, digital advertising is a good supplement to a strong organic social media strategy and general marketing plan, as long as you don’t rely on it as your only avenue to build brand awareness.
TIP: Amplify and put money behind your advertising AFTER you have tested out 2-3 social media platforms organically, to see what resonates with your target audience.
Avenue #3: Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is essentially an elevated and more scalable version of word-of-mouth marketing. However, you’ll want to make sure that you don’t just choose influencers willy-nilly. Make sure that they are aligned with your marketing strategy and will get you a good ROI, depending on what you’re looking for.
TIPS:
Do not expect sales from every influencer you partner with. There are other benefits to influencers - increasing brand awareness, increasing following, increasing brand trust, etc.
Experiment with a combination of macro, power middle and micro-influencers. Macro influencers are good for awareness, power middle can increase your brand likeability and micro will generally convert more because their community is smaller.
Utilize an engagement calculator to check their numbers and make sure that they aren’t just buying followers and likes. You generally want 4% engagement, but note that as their audience size gets bigger, this number will decrease.
Set them up for success - give them a brief, onboard them, and ensure that they understand what success looks like.
Avenue #4: Partnerships
Another thing you can utilize is tapping into other people’s networks and communities. We once had a client that made children’s clothing and they partnered with pre-natal yoga studios, doulas, and baby registry site advertisements. This is a really good way of increasing brand awareness because you’re going where your ideal customer already is and making it easy for them to discover your brand.
TIP: Always be ALONG for your ideal customer’s everyday life and show up where they are instead of being somewhere where they aren’t.
Avenue #5: Press
If we’re being honest, press used to be way bigger than it is nowadays — a lot of our clients end up getting more success when their product is worn by an influencer than when they get featured in a publication. However, that doesn’t mean that press can’t still positively impact your brand, it’s just about being strategic in how you engage with it (i.e. making sure that finding press does not take away from engaging in revenue-generating activities).
TIP: Outsource press and media coverage to a PR agency once your brand gets a little bit bigger.
Avenue #6: Affiliate Marketing
This is when people sell your products/services for you for a cut, which can be an interesting approach, depending on who and where your ideal customer is. You’ll want to make sure that you VET who is representing your brand so that you know they will do it justice and bring you positive brand awareness - you don’t want just anyone to be promoting your brand. This can take a lot of time to manage and it can be quite demanding on you, but it can be really rewarding when you empower the individual and find the right fit!
TIP: Make sure that the individual is incentivized to promote your items so that they are even more likely to bring you positive brand awareness.
There are a lot of different ways to increase brand awareness and these are just some to mention. If you’re just starting from scratch though, DO NOT do all of these. You’re going to burn out, be super overwhelmed and spread yourself too thin, so nothing will be done well. We recommend picking 2-3 of these things and going ALL OUT so that you can see the results!
