Brand Visibility: How to Build a Strong Digital Presence Online
People tend to favor brands that they are most familiar with. They are more likely to purchase their product or service and continue doing so in the future when they need it again. This is why brand visibility is an essential part of every marketing strategy.
So, what is brand visibility? How do you measure it? And, what are the methods to increase it?
What is Brand Visibility?
Brand visibility is the rate your target market encounters your brand during their day-to-day lives. These encounters can be through the different traditional marketing channels (such as TV, radio, and print) or the different digital marketing channels (like search results, websites, digital ads, social media, and video).
As a business, you are aiming to increase your brand visibility in the relevant channels where you can encounter your target audience. You can increase this by consistently communicating with your audience. You can also make your brand more visible by using different branding elements to make it easier for your audience to associate your content and business activities with your brand.
To eliminate any confusion in defining it, here are some branding metrics that are often confused with brand visibility:
The Importance of Brand Visibility
Brand visibility initiates people’s awareness of your brand and the products or services it offers. Without it, there is no way for your business to gain a following online through your website or social media, attract new leads through your email list, or initiate relationships with your potential customers. All of these are essential for initiating the buyer’s journey of your target market and converting them into your customers.
Moreover, by creating good visibility for your brand, you can take advantage of the Mere Exposure Effect. This is a psychological phenomenon wherein people develop a preference towards a person, item, or idea due to the familiarity they gain from being exposed to them repeatedly.
When applied to your business, this psychological phenomenon prompted by your brand visibility efforts increases the chances of someone buying from you after repeated exposure to your content or ads. It also makes it easier for your sales team to convince them to choose your brand over your competitors, which results in shorter sales cycles.
Aside from these two benefits of brand visibility, here are other ways brand visibility can help your business:
Not everyone will become your customer or lead in their first encounter with your brand. Good brand visibility can lead them back to you eventually, which increases the chances of them becoming your customer in the future.
Maintaining your visibility among your target market helps with keeping your brand on top of their minds. When a need for what you offer arises, they are more likely to look for you to inquire about your services or make a purchase.
Your brand has a better chance of becoming an authority in its industry since people are more likely to encounter you when they are looking for information. Of course, this requires you to provide high-quality information on your website and social media channels.
How to Measure Brand Visibility
There is no specific equation for measuring your brand’s visibility. But, there are a variety of ways to estimate its visibility among your target audience. Here are six methods to do this:
01
Step
Share of search
Share of search is a way to measure brand visibility through organic search metrics. It compares the volume of search queries for your brand to that of other brands in your industry.
You can find out the search volume for your and your competitors’ brand keywords through Google Trends or SEO analytics tools. Ideally, the timeframe for your analysis should be at least one year. Then, you can get the share of search for your brand by dividing the search volume for your brand keywords by the total search volume for all the major brands (including yours) in your industry. From the calculations, you can determine how your brand’s share of search compares to other brands in your industry.
02
Step
Share of voice
Share of voice provides a measure of how your brand performs compared to your competitors in terms of brand visibility and industry authority. A greater share of voice equates to greater popularity and authority among your target audience. It uses paid advertising, social media mentions, or search engine traffic as the variables for its measurement.
To measure your brand’s share of voice, you will have to select a metric. You will have to divide the said metric for your brand by the total in your industry. Then, you will multiply the result by 100 to get the percentage of your brand’s share of voice. The metrics you can use to measure the brand of voice are the following:
- Website traffic
- PPC keywords
- Ad impressions
- Social media impressions
- Reach
- Social media brand mentions
- Social media branded hashtags
As you can see, share of voice is a useful gauge for measuring your brand visibility. You can use it for different digital marketing channels as long as you have access to the figures of your competition.
03
Step
Email marketing metrics
You can measure your brand visibility through email marketing metrics as well. Although you cannot compare your visibility to other brands in this method, it can still provide valuable insight as to how frequently your email subscribers encounter your brand in their inboxes. Here are the email marketing metrics you can use to gauge your brand visibility:
Open rate – This tracks the percentage of your email subscribers that are opening the emails you sent them. Email open rate can indicate the number of encounters your brand has with its email subscribers.
Forwarding rate – This metric measures the percentage of your email subscribers that forwarded the email to another recipient. Your email forwarding rate can give insight into how well your campaigns are doing in terms of bringing your brand to the attention of new people.
The Different Channels to Increase and Maintain Brand Visibility
You just read how you can increase brand visibility for your business. So, what channels can you use to do this? Here are the most popular and effective methods you can use to achieve your brand visibility objectives:
How to Increase Brand Visibility
There are several ways to increase your business’ brand visibility. But, it all comes down to two factors – reach and regularity – regardless of the channels or platforms you will include in your brand visibility plan.
To achieve brand visibility, you must reach your target market through your marketing strategies. This means establishing a presence in the channels and platforms where most, if not all, of your potential customers spend their time online.
However, it is not enough to have marketing strategies that will enable your brand to engage with its audience. It must also do so with regularity. Your marketing campaigns must place your brand frequently and consistently in front of your target audience. You can achieve this regularity by
Brand Visibility is Only the Start
Brand visibility is only one part of your branding strategy. You need to take into account other factors to create an effective brand strategy for your business. We can take care of these for you here at Big Market Solutions.
