Every business exists to make money. A business may sell a product or a service, but at the end of the day, the main goal is creating and maintaining a profit. There are several simple business concepts that make this an easy reality for every business: Buy low, sell high, provide great customer service and stand out from the crowd. While these concepts may seem simple, it can be very difficult for any young, growing business to accomplish these tasks.

In order for a business to buy low, it needs the right connections; however, finding the right kind of connections may take some time.

For a business to provide great customer service, it needs experienced employees. Much like buying low and selling high, providing great customer service can take a considerable amount of time, which leaves businesses with one more move: using brand awareness to stand above their competitors.

Understanding Brand Awareness

Small companies often struggle with brand awareness because they overanalyze it. Understanding what brand awareness is and how it has an impact on people is not that difficult. Brand awareness is how well consumers know a brand from a logo, image or some sort of marketing. Successful brands are much more than a product or a service. A successful brand can quickly become rooted in a subculture, and brands don't always directly relate to a physical product or service either. A brand can be a successful sports team that everyone loves. Sports fans will often wear their favorite team's logo or brand to show pride; this is just one example of how a brand can become a cultural staple. The ultimate goal for brand awareness is this:  being able to identify something from some sort of marketing material, be it a t-shirt, sticker, logo, brochure, pen or commercial.

Increasing Brand Awareness

This is the job of the marketing department. If your business does not have its own marketing department, this job will be your responsibility.  Increasing brand awareness is easy. There are already thousands of companies all over the world that are doing this successfully. They have provided plenty of examples that will help any business increase their brand awareness. Before you set out on a marketing plan to try to increase your company's brand awareness, spend a few days watching the pros do it. All you need to do is look around you, and you will start seeing the bigger picture. Study the models of larger companies’ brand awareness programs. Two very important things will start to reveal themselves to you.

The first thing you will notice is that every business that has a successful brand uses the same brand, image or logo across every single form of advertising they do. This is crucial. The more a person sees a brand, the more familiar it becomes. If friends or relatives are using something with this brand on it, it just helps to reinforce familiarity. Familiarity can lead to comfort and comfort can lead to trust. Trust, ultimately, can lead to new customers. This is why large companies use the same image across every form of advertising.

The next thing is that companies, both large and small, hand out free promotional products with their brand on them. This is just as important as using the same brand, logo or image. These types of free handouts are an excellent way to advertise a business, product or service, and it helps fuel the fire that you are trying to create. It all helps build brand awareness.

These products could be something as simple as a sticker, a pen, a t-shirt or a coffee mug. The free product itself does not truly matter as much as the brand that is on it. The small costs associated with these free promotional items will quickly pay for themselves. Promotional items help to establish familiarity with a brand, and, from there, brand awareness is born.

Author Bio:
John Smart is a contributing author who works in the marketing department of a large corporation. He uses promotional products to increase brand awareness for his company and develop new ways of standing out.