The vital question is, in the sea of competitors, how can you successfully remove yourself from the pack and make others acknowledge your existence and thereby exponentially increasing your brand awareness?

Brand awareness is definitely a vital point in distinguishing yourself from the pack and it involves many less tangible aspects of you and your company's reputation. Hence, by identifying the critical factors that will lead to an increase in brand awareness, your positioning and Unique Selling Proposition(USP) would be clear to your prospects, and this leads to higher conversion rates and more profitable advertising campaigns, not to mention a soar in your brand awareness.

This series of articles were specifically designed so that you would be able to exponentially increase your brand awareness, making your brand stick in the minds of your potential customers, so that when they are thinking about your particular niche, the first thing in their mind would be of you and your company brand.

Step 1: Identify the Building Blocks of a Business Brand.

Before we can raise the awareness of your brand, we must first know what the basic building blocks of a brand are. This would give us more clarity on how to proceed with the process of increasing your brand awareness. This also gives you a platform by which to start your branding initiatives.

Firstly, you must know where your company is positioned.

Ask questions such as:

•Does your company provide value for money, presents your customers with a great deal?

•Is your company the best at what it does?

•What about the quality of the products that you offer, is it of the best quality?

•Is your company reliable: Is it a stable operation?

•What are the things that your company values, and strives to pass on to your customers?

•Purple Cow if any?

•Is your company great at innovation, at customer service or at any particular areas?

Step 2: Know What your Customers Really Want!

I know this sounds obvious, but if you don't give your customers what they want or need, it doesn't matter if you have the best products, no-one will buy it.

It is vital to get the overall value system that your ideal customer operates upon. For example, when buying a car, would your customers value safety over beauty?

If you know what they value then you would proceed to built what your ideal customer really wants.

What happens if you invest all of your R&D on making the car bulletproof, at the same time cutting down the budget for the design department, but to just realize that the main criteria for your ideal customers in buying the car is to show off to their friends the beautiful car that they had purchased? What if they don't really have to have a bulletproof car? Wouldn't that be just a waste of your efforts? Wouldn't you spend the money on improving your designs instead?

Whatever decisions you make, it has to be made with your customers in mind.

By knowing what your customers value, you would be able to reach their hearts and emotions, and therefore their wallets.

Step 3: To Know What They Want, You Need To Ask Them!

From the previous step, since we know that the right way is to know what your ideal customer wants, the best way to obtain that information is to ask them. Ask them directly.

Carry out customer surveys, using companies such as AC Nielsen. Or else, you can try asking them personally. Whatever you do, you need to ask.

Ask open questions like such:

1.What do you really want from this product?

2.What is the best product that you have used?

3.What improvements would you like to see from that best product?

4.What annoys you about these products?

5.What are the most important functions that you expect from this product?

6.How would you rank our company in comparison to other competitors for this product line?

Ask value questions also, such as:

•What would be more important, quality or fast delivery?

•Product quality or customer service excellence?

Give them a list of related values and ask them to rank it in order of relative importance.

Once you have gathered sufficient data, then analyze them by their relative importance and mould your product accordingly. If you give your customers what they want, they will flock to you and give you what you want.

The next part will show you even more advance ways to exponentially increase your brand awareness. So, don't miss out on the second part: How To Exponentially Increase Your Brand Awareness Part II

Copyright 2007 © Daniel Toh