What is the first strategy in a marketer’s mind when they need to increase their brand visibility online?
Most brands use the same toolkit:
PPC ad campaigns for landing pages, SEO for higher rankings from search engines, and targeted ads on social media. They have one goal: more sales right here and now.
But such an approach may lead to a dead end, even if your budget is high and your marketing campaigns are of high quality. The pitfall here is a customer’s path to your desired action: It may differ from what you think.
If you take a standard sales funnel as an example, the path will look like this:
The people at the top level don’t even know your brand exists, so it’s not a good idea to offer to buy something right away.
What to do?
Use all alternative promotion channels. It is critical to boost visibility where most of your targets are active and to build a positive brand reputation there.
Below you’ll find 13 such channels to consider. Choose the most relevant to your niche and brand identity — and your target audience will see you.
13 Channels to Consider for Your Brand Visibility Boost
1 — Content marketing
It sounds like a cliche, but the content is still king. And it will continue to be king in 2023. With that in mind, it’s worth focusing on content marketing campaigns: They are among the most compelling instruments to influence brand visibility online.
Consider guest blogging on niche media and publications at third-party resources like relevant Q&A forums (Quora, for example), online newspapers, and article directories. Free resources like Medium, Reddit, SlideShare, and LinkedIn are great for content syndication:
Not only will they make your brand more visible, but they can also bring you natural backlinks, more traffic, and, as a result, higher rankings in SERPs (again, for better visibility).
For this strategy to work, ensure you craft high-quality, informative content relevant to your brand goals and target audience needs.
2 — Social media
Your brand’s presence on social media goes far beyond sales. First and foremost, it’s about providing the followers with handy information that answers their questions and helps them solve daily problems.
Look at big brands:
Do their social media accounts sell 24/7? They don’t; otherwise, users wouldn’t subscribe to them. Instead, big brands use social media channels to remind about themselves: They post educational and helpful information, organize contests, communicate with the audience, share news and perks for clients, engage with quizzes, etc.
All these allow them to engage a broader audience, promote brand authenticity, and build trust. Plus, branded visual content on social media works to increase brand visibility online:
When your custom (branded) content is appropriate and instrumental, users are more likely to save and share it, thus boosting your brand awareness in their social environment.
3 — PPC ads
Yes, PPC ads attract users who come to Google with a transactional search intent, i.e., when they want to purchase, download something, start a trial, etc. However, PPC ads you create via Google Display Network also work to build your brand awareness:
While users who see your ads on websites don’t intend to buy right now, they will notice you anyway and may think of your brand the next time they need corresponding information.
Big brands often use PPC ads to attract users’ attention to new products or discounts.
4 — Media ads
Known as web page banners, such ads work like billboards on roads: The main goal is to grab a user’s attention and make a brand more visible. To reach as many websites as possible, marketers advertise through specialized networks. (Google also has one.)
The only problem here may be such a long-known web user behavior as banner blindness:
People tend to ignore page elements they perceive to be ads. Plus, competition is super high: Big chances are that your media ads will sink in the crowd of other ads, and users won’t notice them.
So, ensure this channel will work in your particular case; otherwise, it’s worth considering some more native ads instead.
5 — SEO
Higher rankings in search engines are a giant step toward increased brand visibility. The higher, the better: As we all know, users pay much attention to the top 3-5 results in SERPs and don’t care about lower positions; websites that win Google Snippets and the tops of SERPs get more loyalty and trust from searchers.
Long story short, search engine optimization does matter for visibility.
So, do your best to craft high-quality SEO content satisfying informational search intent. It is much more effective in the long run than short-term SEO manipulations some specialists still practice in the hope of fast results.
6 — Influencer marketing
You know the rules:
Collaborate with popular YouTubers and Instagrammers whose audience relates to yours. As a rule, their followers are super loyal and engaged, so the promo of your products or services on their channels will influence your brand visibility greatly.
7 — Interactive content
Contests, flashmobs, challenges, sales — such content are super engaging, and users enjoy participating and, thus, promoting your brand to a broader audience. Brands often use interactive content on social media when they need to represent a new product to the market, and they also invite influencers to such campaigns.
You can make up any contest or challenge you want. The main thing is to mention your brand name or product and decide on the award to motivate the audience to participate. Also, it’s critical to craft content relevant to your business goals and your targets’ needs.
8 — Referrals
For users to help you promote a brand, provide them with corresponding instruments. Why not consider affiliate marketing or make them your referrals? Your client invites a new customer or subscriber — and gets a discount or another bonus from you.
Such a referral program helped Dropbox to increase sign-ups by 60%. Users were happy to share links with others because they got extra storage space for each referred friend.
Discounts, giveaways, free trials, and other goodies always work. Feel free to use them for any type of brand promo.
9 — Video Marketing
Video is your friend for winning new platforms and getting more visibility. Now it’s not just about advertising but also entertainment content, as well as the processing of informational requests.
Your video channel may cover interviews with niche specialists and your team, webinars, Q&A sessions, helpful advice, etc. It’s your instrument to build brand awareness, get more audience, and build authoritativeness and trust.
Please pay attention to video design: A short stylish intro is an opportunity to mention your brand to the audience again. A few views are already enough to cement your brand in their memory. Be creative: video storytelling tactics will work best here.
10 — E-book
Free e-books are a great lead magnet for users to get to know your brand and subscribe to it in search of more content like that provided. The challenge here is that the process of e-book creation consumes tons of resources:
To make it high-quality, engaging, and informative, get ready to spend time, energy, and budget on research, planning, writing, and designing a book. Otherwise, the game won’t be worth a candle: E-books make sense only if they are informative, a la “all-inclusive.” If they are of low quality, users will get disappointed, and your brand will get a reputation of nonprofessionals in the niche.
11 — Guestographics and instructographics
As you may guess from the name, this content type relates to an oldy-moldy infographic.
But:
While infographics may inform users about everything, instructographics provide instructions on how to do something: They are about step-by-step and how-to guides with a super high potential for sharing because they explain complex data in an easy-to-digest format.
Users love sharing such content, so it’s your chance to reach a broader audience: Just do your best to design instructographics so they would grab attention and help users solve a problem.
Guestographics are infographics you create in collaboration with other brands. For example, they provide content, and you — design, or vice versa. Guestographics allow you to build brand awareness, reach a broader audience, and establish connections.
12 — Podcasts
Content is not only about text, pictures, or video. Audio format is the best one to reach people who are lazy or busy to read but will be happy to listen while doing a few things at once.
Podcasts remain the top trend in 2023, and streaming giants like YouTube and Spotify support and encourage users to practice them. So, if your target audience prefers this format, you can use podcasts to promote products and connect with customers.
If you have no resources to manage a podcast, you can collaborate with popular podcasters who are influencers in the niche to share brand stories and invite the audience to learn more about you.
13 — Stickers
Let’s face it we live in an era when people communicate more by pictures than words. And before we go into telepathy, why not take advantage of brand visibility and promotion via stickers?
Many companies are already doing this, offering free branded stickers in exchange for various perks. Users then exchange those stickers in messengers, thus increasing your visibility to a new audience.
Please note: This instrument works only if your branded stickers are super cool and engaging and you know how to use them right. Otherwise, it can be just a pleasant bonus to use inside your company.
In a Word
With all the competition and user behavior changes online, it becomes more and more challenging for marketers to introduce brands and products to the audience. Direct ads won’t always work, even if you have a budget for PPC and social media targeting ads, so it’s high time to rethink your promotion and user acquisition strategies.
In this article, you’ve read about 13 alternative channels for brand promotion. Use those most relevant to your niche, business goals, and audience needs — and your brand visibility will skyrocket.
All Image Credits: Provided by the Author; Thank you!
