5 Ways to Increase Traffic and Boost Brand Awareness

When trying to increase traffic (online and offline), it’s essential first to understand your customer base and target market. From there, businesses need to look for ways to differentiate from their competitors while remaining relatable and relevant.

As a small business owner, one of the most powerful assets you’ll likely have is your local market, which is often not fully maximized. In fact, according to a recent study, 82% of consumers are backing local business and are showing a preference for local products, businesses, and services.

While there are many methods to lure shoppers to visit your store, there’s likely some out-of-the-box strategies you haven’t explored. We’ve curated a list of five ideas to increase traffic and boost  brand awareness to establish it among your audience and help increase traffic to your business.

Five Ways to Increase Traffic and Improve Brand Awareness

1. Use Word of Mouth and Referral Programs

One of the easiest methods for offline marketing is through word of mouth. To have a business that people want to talk about, you first need to establish trust and create positive experiences. Provide people with excellent service and communication, give away free items occasionally, engage with your customers personally and make sure you listen to their complaints. The better the customer experience in-store or online, the better your customers will talk about your products and/or business.

A great way to encourage word of mouth and build brand awareness is by implementing a referral program and rewarding customers for spreading the world. Example: “Refer a friend and earn $10 when they sign up.” Not only do businesses save advertising dollars and receive an endorsement from those who shout out your brand, but the businesses message is being shared from credible sources.

See how dropbox utilised referral programs to generate new sign-ups below.

Their referral program gave users twice as much extra free space when the friends that they invited signed up, incentivising people to share and encourage other potential users to sign up.

Amanda Stevens, award-winning speaker, author and marketer says that ideally, you want to be rewarding referrals rather than incentivizing with upfront bribes but if you do offer an incentive, offer a choice of three rewards – it can double the response.

2. Local Area Advertising

Local area advertising fosters a closer relationship with its audience, encouraging people who are more likely to trust and listen to its message. Billboard advertising is a great local area marketing option with Billboards rivalling digital advertising in terms of CPM’s (cost per impression) allowing for a much bigger real estate to showcase a brand.

One of the great benefits of incorporating billboard ads into your marketing strategy is to achieve local recognition with community-oriented campaigns, especially for a brand or business tied to the community where the billboard is displayed. When placing billboard advertisements in a location where your target audience often spends time, a great example being a supermarket, you reap the benefits of one consumer impression each time they pass your advertisement, thereby increasing brand recognition and awareness.
For example, at Notice Board Systems, we leverage the interactive power of notice boards and position digital and print options near the checkout at local supermarkets where over 5 million customers pass through every week.

Secondly, unlike digital advertising, people can’t skip, quickly scroll past, use ad-blocks or avoid billboards using premium subscriptions, and they are permanently placed ‘forcing’ people to notice them where they shop most. Not only is it an inexpensive marketing method, but it can reach a vast local audience, especially if your goal is to increase awareness and branding.

3. Incorporate the right Social Media platform

Social media is a great way to build social proof and increase brand awareness. If someone likes you on Facebook, it will pop up in their friends’ newsfeeds and on your PPC (Pay Per Click) ads. If your content is good enough, it will also be shared, retweeted and exposed to an audience beyond your following.

If you’re a business owner developing a marketing strategy, including social media to boost your company’s brand awareness is a no-brainer. However, before you start creating profiles for your company, you need to determine which platforms fit your products and/or business and your target demographic. Start by reviewing the most significant platforms to find the right choice/s for your business:

• Facebook: As the largest social platform, Facebook is essential for most brands seeking to grow their audiences, share high-quality content, and build a community of fans.
• Instagram: With its focus on photo and video, Instagram is perfect for companies with strong visual brands and businesses that tell image-based stories.
• Pinterest: As a visual library of sorts, Pinterest is best for increasing brand awareness through images and using links to drive your audience to your high-quality content.
• LinkedIn: Ideal for business-to-business (B2B) companies, this platform is ideal for sharing company news, discussing industry trends, and connecting with relevant influencers.
• Twitter: Designed to encourage conversations and generate discussions, Twitter is great for connecting with customers, influencers, and other brands.

Below are five tips on how you can use social media to build brand awareness:

1. Create high-quality content that adds value by answering your audience’s questions, entertaining your followers, or sharing intriguing stories about your brand.
2. Show your audience what your brand is about and don’t be afraid to get visually creative.
3. Start conversations. Focus less on making statements and more on starting conversations with your potential customers.
4. Help fans find your brand. Make your brand easy to find either by using hashtags to increase visibility or encouraging fans to share high-quality content to expand your research.
5. Host contests and giveaways. Hosting giveaways and running contest are two great ways to build brand awareness quickly and effectively. Make the contest easy to enter and encourage your audience to share it.

See below a giveaway from a company called Fabletics:

They held a twelve-day promotion with new contests and winners each day. It’s a little more complex than most giveaways but there are a few perks to this setup. Firstly, it’s a joint promotion between Fabletics and Bliss World, so both brands benefit. To enter, fans had to follow both brand’s accounts, like the photo, and tag their bestie in the comments. To score an extra entry, fans had the option of sharing the contest post using the dedicated hashtag #GiftsForMeSweeps. This strategy not only increases brand awareness by utilising word of mouth but also increases traffic to the brand’s website and social media accounts through mass exposure.

4. Find New Audiences with Influencer Marketing

Working with an influencer can get your name front and centre in front of the right audiences building brand awareness. Influencer marketing is a successful marketing strategy used worldwide and involves finding people that are more credible and reputable than content created by a company or brand. It’s essential to do your research and find the right influencers who fit with your brand and share a common voice or similar target audience to ensure that your campaign feels authentic and natural to avoid coming across as an advertisement. You could consider enlisting the help of an agency or do your research or reach out to influencers yourself.

Make a list of the key influencers in your target marketing for the local community (e.g. a hairdresser might target a beauty salon, a fashion retailer etc.) and send them a free sample of discount for your services. Word of mouth is the best kind of exposure, and your generosity will get them talking (and most likely increase traffic both online and offline).

Improve your Brand’s Visibility

According to Marketing Angels’ Michelle Gamble, many businesses don’t fully maximize opportunities to get exposure for their brand for free. “Brand everything. Where possible have prominent signage brand your car, if appropriate have staff uniforms/t-shirts, create a branded email signature, newsletters, use pop-up banners whenever you can for events and promotions.” You can even order things like a branded ribbon for corporate gifts, as you can never have your brand visible in enough places.

At Notice Board Systems, we feature your business, service or product within a highly trusted brand of a supermarket, all day, every day. By achieving local recognition, placing your billboard in a location where there is a huge audience, and customers potentially seeing your advertisement multiple times per week, your business can increase brand awareness and improve its traffic.

Take advantage of one of Australia’s most powerful local area marketing opportunities with your choice of over 700 great local sites with exposure of up to 5 million viewers every week, contact us on 1300 390 242 or email sales@nbsteam.com.au.