Feed: How To Increase Brand Awareness Using Company Pins? - AggScore: 10.8

How To Increase Brand Awareness Using Company Pins?

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In today's market it's not enough to offer a high quality product or service at a competitive price and supported by an exceptional customer service. You necessarily need consumers to know your company and to be exposed to your brand. If people don't know you, how are they supposed to buy from you? Brand Awareness is one of the most important marketing concepts and it refers to the brand's presence in people's minds. However, the intensity of this presence can vary a lot. To make things easy let me classify brand awareness in three levels: 1. Recognition - Consumers recognize your brand if they see it out there or someone talks about it. 2. Recall - Consumers recall your brand when they need a product or service that belongs to your category. 3. Top of Mind - Your brand is the first idea that comes to the consumer's mind when they think about an specific category. Having people to remember your brand is the first step in getting more customers and more sales. It seems quite obvious but people who know you will buy from you. There are many factors or variables that can affect your brand awareness but I think two of them are specially relevant. 1. Brand Name - If it's an "easy" name more likely that people would remember it. Also, sometimes it's helpful if your brand name refers somehow to the category your products belong to. 2. Advertising - When you advertise your brand people see your logo and listen to your message. The more they see it the better chances they'll remember it later. While the importance of Brand Awareness is out of discussion, the amount of money to dedicate to this effort is commonly an issue and a big challenge for many small and medium businesses. It's in this scenario that I would like to talk about company logo pins [1] and provide some ideas in how to use them to advertise your brand. They are a great option when talking about promoting your brand at an affordable price. The main idea of using lapel pins with your company logo is to gain exposure. The more people wearing your pin the more exposure you get and with an attractive design you will catch people's attention and make it unforgettable. People wearing your pins become your "ambassadors" spreading the word about your company. I would like to share some ideas in how to use your company pins [2]. The applicability of one or more of them will depend on the specific of your industry or business. Options are endless, hope this list is a good start and helps to give some inspiration. 1. Give your company pins to all your employees, they'll love the gift and more likely wear it proudly. 2. In your next trade show or event, along with your business cards, give away company logo pins to all your visitors or attendees. 3. If you have a Facebook page or a Blog, design 2 or 3 pins options and do an online poll where people can vote for the one they like the most. Motivate people to vote by offering a special coupon and you can also send them the winner design. If you offer a good incentive for participating in the poll, people will share it online spreading the word about your poll and your brand at the same time. 4. If you have a database with your customers information (name and address), you can do a loyalty campaign to reward your best customers. Send out letters to them thanking for their preference and as a gesture include your pin with a message on it saying something like "Best Customer 2010". By adding this message on the lapel pin you're increasing the odds that your customer will wear it because any person would love some recognition. Also, by including the pins in your mail you will make it stand out from other promotional communication they might receive. 5. Design a beautiful Christmas lapel pin with your logo on it. For example, a Christmas tree or your Merry Christmas message alongside your logo. You can do a special promotion with them or just give them away to your customers during the Holiday season. Custom made pins [3] can be a great promotional tool for any company and compared with other media elements they're not expensive. What is more, they have an incredible multiplier effect: The more people using it the more exposure you get!  [1] http://www.siennapacific.com/lapel-pins/companypins.html [2] http://www.siennapacific.com/lapel-pins/companypins.html [3] http://www.siennapacific.com/lapel-pins/