How to spread awareness of your business

Whether you are a new or established business it is important to continue to advertise yourself, either to initially get your name out there or to keep your name at the forefront. In order to spread awareness of your business you must repeatedly expose your brand to your target audience. 

Even world-famous brands such as Coca-Cola continue to spend millions on advertisements, commercials, event sponsorships and endorsements. Why? Because they can’t become complacent in their role as market leader if they want to stay there. The world of business is continually growing and changing and companies need to grow and change with that or fall behind. There are always new people to target and advertising is an extremely powerful tool in securing new customers, if it is done right. 

Coke’s logo is famous worldwide, so for their advertising campaigns in 2013 and 2014 they swapped their iconic logo for ‘Your Name’ so that everyone could ‘Share a Coke.’ In theory, a seemingly very simple idea, but in reality it was extremely clever! People went mad for the bottles and by using social media to express that, it fast became one of coke’s most successful marketing campaigns.  

You may not have the million-dollar budget that the big brands have, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take inspiration from them. It is clear to see that the brand leaders’ use of innovative and unique advertising has played a huge role in not only getting them to the top but keeping them there. 

By offering remarkable experiences you will earn trust and loyalty, which will translate, to a whole host of benefits for your business. So why not give a gift, because who wouldn’t want to receive a present out of the blue?  The first few bottles were sent to celebrities as gifts, because their tweets would reach millions of followers. 

You may not be on the same scale as Coke to be able to create such a campaign, but what you could do to start with is send out a gift to relevant people that you want to connect with. How about a selection of goodies like the ones on this site, which can include chocolate, wine and much more! You could also include branded items within your package. Find out what the people you want to work with need and brand that. The result is they become a walking advertisement for you. 

Then use the internet and media, which are either inexpensive or free ways to show what you are physically doing with your business. Most importantly you need a website as a base for all your information. Then send out press releases to local and national publications, as well as writing your own content! A blog is a great place to start, which, with sites such as Wordpress, can be both free and easy to set up and can be used alongside You Tube to create online videos to share fun and alternative content. 

Information is invaluable, so ensure you offer useful and beneficial blogs that will get people talking. Don’t underestimate the power of social media - setting up sites such as Twitter and Facebook are free ways to reach and engage with millions of people and offer a platform to share your blog, videos and updates on your business. When your budget allows it, paid for ads will boost the already useful aspects of social for business.  

Coke’s campaign was so successful due their utilization of the ever popular and growing social media tools. In 2014 the company received 998 million impressions on Twitter including 235,000 tweets from 111,000 using the #ShareaCoke hashtag. In a world where we can’t do anything without tweeting about it, give your customers something to be tweeting about! Then use the tools provided to measure how well campaigns are doing and see how they can be improved. 

Start off with these simple and mostly inexpensive but extremely effective ideas and you will be competition for the corporate giants such as Coca-Cola in no time!