Popular brands are everywhere around us. They are often worth several billions of dollars. Entrepreneurs regularly think that the branding process ends after creating a logo and a catchy slogan. Actually, branding is a continuous process, which requires you to search for different ways to improve your brand’s reach. In this article, we’ve listed 5 of the most creative ways for companies to increase their brand awareness.

1. ‘Refer a Friend’ Programs

Loyal customers are the best brand advocates. In order to capitalize on word-to-mouth marketing, you need to offer various incentives to your current clients and ask them to refer your products or services to their friends. Drop-Box is successfully using this strategy for a long time. They offer more free storage space to users who manage to motivate their friends to sign up.  

2. Promotional Products

Many people think that in the digital world, promotional products are not as effective as they used to be. They are underestimating the power of free things, which was thoroughly researched by some of the most acclaimed marketing experts like Dan Ariely. People love gifts, especially if they are practical and well-designed. Promotional products also need to be useful and durable, so consumers can use them for a long time and share them with their friends. Today, we can easily find affordable promotional merchandise, which usually comes with printing services and shipping.

3. Social Media Contests

Social media contests can have a huge consumer outreach. These digital events support your followers to share your brand image or video across the web by offering incentives to contestants that gather the most likes or comments. This is a classic referral marketing tactic, which also motivates your customers to create product-related content and share it with their friends. You can use their content in your future marketing campaigns and turn it into the best possible testimonials.  

4. Make it Exclusive

Many app developers choose to launch their products as closed BETAs in order to make them more exclusive. Software companies use this approach when they want to launch a new product or update. During this period, consumers can access the software only after they receive an invitation from someone who’s already using it. It sounds silly, but in this case, limiting your customer base, increases the popularity of your products and services. Exclusivity creates buzz because people always want to get the things that are out of their reach.

5. Contact Influencers

Influencer marketing is different from regular sponsorship. You won’t need to sign a million dollar contracts and to worry whether your celebrity partner is going to get arrested for DUI. You just need to track the influencers who are popular among your targeted audience, send them a nice batch of product samples and wait for them to share your brand’s message across the web. There are thousands of social media celebrities out there, who gather from few thousands to few million followers. They’re all ordinary people who love discounts and free stuff, so most of them will gladly accept your gift.

Finally, most people think that powerful brands are exclusively reserved for big industry names. In most cases, brands grow together with the company and even the small business entrepreneurs can create a trademark that will one day turn into a Coca-Cola, Nike, Home Depot or Toyota sized brand.