How to Increase Brand Awareness in B2B

Brand awareness is a core requirement for companies trading in competitive B2B sectors. If your name isn't known, you aren't in the running, so it's essential that buyers and procurement teams are familiar with your business.

Increasing awareness isn't about instantly improving sales. It is part of a long-term strategy that will set you up for scalable success, linking seamlessly with marketing, SEO and PR campaigns.

Why worry about brand awareness? Because well-known brand names are familiar and credible. Time-poor buyers often don't have time to evaluate a new potential supplier and are far more likely to pick a company they know and trust.

A whopping 89% of B2B buyers research online before making a decision - and if you're an authority in your field and at the top of those search engine pages, you're in an enviable position.

Why worry about brand awareness? Because well-known brand names are familiar and credible.”

A whopping 89% of B2B buyers research online before making a decision - and if you're an authority in your field and at the top of those search engine pages, you're in an enviable position.

Picking the Right Brand Awareness Approach

One of the best ways to augment brand awareness in your industry is to go back to basics and ensure you have a content-rich, engaging and professional website geared towards your target buyer's needs, expectations and requirements.

An excellent website with flawless functionality, a clear value proposition and informative guides and resources benefits UX and UI, brand perceptions, SEO metrics and conversions, so it's an all-around must-have.

B2B websites are often overly corporate or dull - but this is your first chance to make an impression and stand out from the crowd. Make sure your site is mobile-optimised, easy to navigate, and answers every possible question a buyer might have - make their life easier, and you're doing it right.

Retargeting and Re-engagement Strategies

The next thing to consider is what you do once your buyer has visited your website and formed an initial idea about your brand.

Our memories are short, so retargeting helps you to:

Showcase ads, incentives or offers to attract visitors back to your site.
Keep your brand front and centre in your buyer's mind.
Promote your brand as one that is keen to do business and understands your buyer's pain points.

The key is to ensure you are proactive about engagement and making yourself visible!

Publishing Informative Content

We often think of content as a tick-the-box exercise; after all, Google loves fresh content, and it's important to keep your online presence moving! However, the value and quality of your content can make a marked difference to your brand reputation.

There are several pieces of content that are particularly useful in establishing credibility, strengthening your domain authority and providing genuinely useful information for your buyers or prospective clients:

Case studies can promote the real-world value of your product or service, highlighting results you have achieved, and quoting statistics and figures.
Research papers relevant to your sector can be a goldmine of information for buyers, showing your market knowledge and providing sharable content.
Opinion pieces and insights place you in an authoritative position, perhaps addressing challenges to your industry, explaining how you do things differently, or proposing innovations.

Any content that benefits your target audience is advantageous, be that blogs, updates, guest posts or press releases - a buyer who trusts your brand to answer their questions will turn to you when they need to select a supplier.

Outreach Marketing and PR

Buyers rarely come to you - it takes time to generate leads, nurture them, and convert, but it all starts with brand awareness.

At this stage, the aim is to pinpoint the right place and time to get in front of your buyer demographic, which could be through:

Social media marketing: research the platforms your buyer is most likely to use and post interesting articles, cross-linked blogs, updates and news.
Trade publications: buyers use trade magazines, newsletters and updates to discover new products, industry trends and market movements, so a feature, ad or guest post in a sector-specific outlet is an ideal way to increase brand awareness.
B2B events: face to face communications can be just as effective as digital marketing, and if a buyer has met you, sampled your products, or listened to a speech or presentation delivered by one of your team, your brand will stick. Exposure is the name of the game, so getting in front of a specifically targeted audience is an opportunity not to be missed - if you can join a panel or present to the delegates, all the better.

This list is far from exhaustive, but it demonstrates a range of tactics you could employ to connect with buyers, raise awareness of your brand, and start building the framework for engagement, dialogue, and potential future sales.

Quantifying the Impact of Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is tricky to quantify because it isn't something you can easily measure - but you can track website traffic, campaign click-throughs, or new client enquiries.

However, it is a bit of a numbers game. The greater your presence within your niche and the more respected your brand is as an expert, the more likely a buyer will get in touch when they have a problem or need to refer to your expertise for their next project.

For example, you might have 1,000 website visitors a month and convert, say, 10% into marketing prospects and then another 10% into new clients.

But, if you have engaged in a brand awareness campaign with content marketing, PR features and a clear value proposition, you might expect to increase your visitors by a considerable margin.

If a larger proportion of those visitors already know your brand, are familiar with what you do, and respect your ability to meet their needs, your conversion rates could skyrocket - and all because you have invested in brand awareness and made the conversion process simpler, faster, and with much less effort.

Following some of the tips above is a proactive, meaningful way to get your brand name into the spotlight and communicate what you can offer. When you do come to make a phone call, present a sales pitch or contact a buyer, you will be starting from a positive position as a brand they are already aware of.