Brett LindenbergTo increase brand awareness, make your brand easy to recognize, then put it in front of the same group of buyers again and again in the places where they already find new brands. In practice that means a few distinctive brand assets you keep the same everywhere, steady reach through search, social, and video, and mentions from people your buyers trust: customers, partners, creators, and the press. Measure progress with branded search, direct traffic, and a short recall survey that you repeat each quarter. For a small example of a brand asking its community to take part, pick the trail issue a local shop should cover at its next cleanup in this 33-second interactive video.
What brand awareness means
Brand awareness is the share of the people you want to sell to who know your brand exists and connect it with what you sell. Marketers measure it two ways:
- Aided awareness (recognition): you show a buyer your name or logo and ask whether they have seen it before.
- Unaided awareness (recall): you name the category, for example "project management software," and ask which brands come to mind. The first brand named is "top of mind."
Recall is the harder and more useful number, because buyers usually start with a shortlist from memory. Two findings from LinkedIn's B2B Institute and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute show why recall decides so many sales. The 95-5 rule says that 95% of your potential buyers are not ready to buy today; they will enter the market later. And in a study of brand rejection in B2B, Jenni Romaniuk found that fewer than 1 in 10 business decision makers rejected each brand in two common service categories. Romaniuk's conclusion: a lack of awareness is much more likely to hold back growth than active rejection of the brand.
10 ways to increase brand awareness
The first two steps make the brand memorable. Steps 3 to 9 put it in front of more of the right people. Step 10 is about budget. Most teams need a few from each group, and none of them work as a one-off campaign.
1. Decide who you want to reach and the moments when they think of you
Awareness is only useful among people who could buy from you. Write down the buyers you want and, in their own words, the situations that make them start looking for a product like yours. For a payroll tool that might be "we just hired our tenth employee" or "our accountant retired." For a bakery it might be "I need a cake by Saturday."
Romaniuk's paper recommends the same work: find the cues people use to build a mental shortlist, then connect your brand to those cues in your marketing and sales calls. Each buying situation can become a blog post, a short video, an ad, or a talk track, and every piece points at the same buyers.
2. Choose distinctive brand assets and keep them the same
People remember brands through repeated cues: a name, a logo, a color, a typeface, a sound, a character, or a phrase. These cues only work if they stay the same long enough for people to learn them. Pick a small set and write them on one page:
- logo files for light and dark backgrounds
- one main color and one accent color, with exact color values
- one typeface for headings and one for body text
- a short description of your voice, with two or three phrases you use and two you never use
- rules for video: where the logo appears, which sound or music plays at the start, and how captions look
Then apply the sheet everywhere a buyer meets you, including places teams forget: email signatures, invoices, conference badges, video thumbnails, and the video player itself. In Mindstamp you can brand the player with your colors, logo, and type, and questions and buttons take the same styling. Set a branded thumbnail too, because it becomes the image people see when a video link is shared.
3. Show up where people discover new brands, starting with search
DataReportal's Digital 2026 Global Overview Report (published October 2025, with survey data from GWI) ranks the channels where internet users aged 16 and over say they find new brands:
- Search engines are first. Nearly 1 in 3 internet users say they learn about new products and services through Google, Bing, and similar engines.
- TV ads are second.
- Ads on social media are third, named by more than 30% of internet users, and they are the top source of brand discovery for people aged 16 to 34.
The same report adds a caution: even the top three channels together reach only 62.2% of the world's online adults, so no single channel is enough. It also notes that a presence on two or three of the main social platforms can reach about 9 in 10 social media users, so you do not need to be everywhere.
For search, publish pages and videos that answer the questions your buyers type during the buying situations from step 1. A local business should also claim its Google Business Profile, which is free and controls how the business appears on Google Search and Maps.
AI assistants are a newer discovery channel. DataReportal's advice for them is familiar: publish the content you want AI summaries to use, make sure AI crawlers can read it, start conversations on social platforms and forums, and earn mentions in authoritative media. Google Analytics 4 now has an "AI Assistant" default channel for visits from tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot (it excludes Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode), so you can track that traffic.
4. Publish short videos built for recognition
Video carries more of your brand at once than text: a face, a voice, music, colors, and the product in use. In Wyzowl's 2026 video marketing survey, 93% of video marketers said video had helped them increase brand awareness. Wyzowl is a video production company and surveyed 266 people in late 2025, so read it as one survey's view. HubSpot's marketing statistics page reports from its 2026 State of Marketing report that short-form video is the content format marketers use most and the one they say returns the most.
For awareness, a video has to work for people who will never watch to the end:
- Show a brand cue in the first few seconds: the product, the logo, or a familiar face.
- Add captions so the message works with the sound off.
- Make a separate cut for each platform's shape and length instead of posting one file everywhere. Our guide to video marketing for social media lists the current specs.
- Keep one idea per video, tied to one buying situation.
Length matters too. Across 8.07 million views of 18,315 Mindstamp videos (2018 to October 2026), videos of one minute or less averaged 59.4% watched, compared with 39.2% for videos of two to five minutes. These are mostly training, marketing, and sales videos made by our customers, and many factors differ between short and long videos, so treat this as a pattern, not a rule. It still supports a simple habit: put your brand and your main point early. For why video now takes so much of people's online time, see why video marketing is taking over the digital space, and for a full plan, our video marketing strategy guide.
5. Ask your audience to take part
A post that asks for a vote, a guess, or a choice gives people a reason to stop and a result worth sharing. Formats that work for awareness:
- Polls about a real decision, such as which product color to make next or which cause your team should support.
- Quizzes that help people diagnose a problem in your category, for example "Which kind of trail runner are you?" for a shoe brand.
- Calculators that put a number on the problem you solve, such as a savings or time estimate.
- Interactive videos where the viewer chooses what to see next.
The demo at the top of this post is the last kind. We built it in Mindstamp with three hotspots, one for each trail issue. Each hotspot saves the choice in a viewer variable, jumps to the matching scene, and the recap shows the choice back to the viewer. You can see how it was put together on the Neighborhood Trail Poll example page. A simpler option is a poll question, which pauses the video and shows viewers the results chart after they vote.
The answers are as useful as the reach. Each choice is stored against the viewer, so you can see which topics your audience cares about, then publish the result ("Creek Path erosion won, see you on Saturday") and give people a reason to come back. Our guide to interactive video marketing covers more formats, and our post on using interactive video in content marketing has five more ideas.
6. Turn customers into your messengers
Customers can introduce you to people your ads do not reach. Make it easy for them to talk about you:
- Ask for a review at a moment of success, such as the day a project ships or a problem gets solved, and send the direct link to the review site.
- Ask permission before you repost a customer's photo or video, and credit them by name.
- Record short customer stories and use them in social posts, on product pages, and in sales emails.
- Give customers a referral link or a reason to bring a colleague, such as a shared workshop.
Stay inside the rules. In August 2024 the US Federal Trade Commission announced a final rule against fake reviews and testimonials. It bans buying fake reviews and offering incentives that depend on a review being positive or negative. You can still ask every customer for an honest review. For more on earning trust with video, read how to build trust.
7. Partner with people your buyers already follow
A partner lends you its audience's attention. The best partners serve the same buyers without competing with you.
| Partner type | Why it works | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Small creators in your niche | Their audience is focused and trusts their recommendations. | A coffee roaster sends beans to a home-barista creator for an honest review series. |
| Complementary brands | You reach each other's customers without competing for the same sale. | A home gym equipment brand and a meal-prep service run a joint giveaway. |
| Podcasts and newsletters | Hosts and editors already speak to your buyers every week. | A finance app's founder appears on a small-business podcast to explain cash-flow planning. |
| Associations and community groups | They gather your buyers in one room or one forum. | A safety training company sponsors and teaches a session at a regional trade association meeting. |
Paid or gifted partnerships need a clear disclosure. The FTC's Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers says creators must disclose any financial, employment, personal, or family relationship with a brand, and free products count. Put that requirement in your partner agreement.
8. Earn mentions in the press and in AI answers
Third-party mentions reach people who have never seen your ads, and DataReportal lists them among the ways to show up in AI answers. Give journalists and writers something they cannot get elsewhere:
- Original data from your product or a survey of your customers, published with its method.
- A named expert on your team who answers reporter questions fast and in plain words.
- A free tool or template that other sites want to link to.
Track who mentions you (the measurement section below lists tools), thank them, and send an update when your data changes.
9. Make the brand physical where your buyers gather
Events, packaging, and useful merchandise put your brand in someone's hands and on their desk. Sponsor a local event your buyers attend, staff a table, or run a short workshop. If you give away branded items, choose things people keep and use, such as water bottles, notebooks, or tote bags.
Connect the physical item to something online. A QR code on a booth sign, a box insert, or a flyer can open a short video that introduces the brand and asks one question. Our guide to QR codes for videos shows how to set one up and track the scans.
10. Fund brand building separately from ads that ask for a click
Ads that ask for a click right now mostly serve the 5% of buyers who are ready to buy. Awareness work reaches the 95% who will buy later, so it needs its own budget and its own goals. Les Binet and Peter Field's research for LinkedIn's B2B Institute, 5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing, recommends that B2B brands:
- split budget about evenly between long-term brand building and short-term sales activation
- aim for a share of voice above their share of market, since brands that do so tend to grow
- use emotional messaging for long-term effects and rational messaging for short-term effects
Share of voice is your brand's share of the advertising or conversation in your category. If your brand makes 5% of category sales, the research points to aiming for more than 5% of the voice.
How to measure brand awareness
No single number captures awareness. Record a baseline before you start, then track a small set of metrics every month and compare the same months year over year to allow for seasons.
| Metric | What it shows | Where to get it | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Branded search clicks and impressions | How many people search for you by name | The branded queries filter in Google Search Console | Only for top-level properties with enough search volume; Google says some queries may be misclassified |
| Search interest compared with competitors | Your name's search interest over time against rivals | Google Trends, or keyword volume in Semrush | Trends shows relative interest on a 0 to 100 scale, not search counts |
| Direct traffic | Visits from people who typed your address or used a bookmark | Google Analytics 4, Direct channel | Untagged links, PDFs, and ad blockers also show as direct |
| Mentions and share of voice | Who talks about you, where, and in what tone, compared with competitors | A listening tool such as Brand24 or Semrush's brand monitoring | Coverage and sentiment scoring differ between tools; compare like with like |
| Aided and unaided recall | Whether your target buyers recognize or name you | A short survey sent to the same type of audience each quarter | Change the wording and you lose the trend |
| Ad recall and awareness lift | Whether people who saw your video ads remember them | Google Ads Brand Lift | Needs a Google account representative and enough ad spend |
| Video reach and attention | Views, how much of each video people watched, shares, and clicks | Platform analytics; in Mindstamp, per-viewer reports | A view count alone does not show recall |
Branded search
Google added a branded queries filter to the Search Console Performance report in November 2025 and made it available to all eligible sites on March 11, 2026. An AI-assisted system sorts queries into branded and non-branded. Branded queries include your name in any language, misspellings, and searches for products unique to you. The Insights report also shows branded and non-branded clicks side by side. If the filter does not appear for your site, use "Filter by query" with your brand name and its common misspellings. Google describes this breakdown as a way to measure brand recognition, so compare the branded line month over month.
Direct traffic
Google Analytics 4 counts a visit as Direct when its source is "(direct)" and its medium is "(none)" or "(not set)". Google's explanation of (direct) / (none) traffic lists other causes: links without UTM tags, redirects that strip them, links in PDFs and Word files, and ad blockers. Tag every campaign link so that the direct number stays closer to people who came to you by name.
Mentions and share of voice
Brand24 says it tracks public mentions across social media, news, blogs, videos, forums, podcasts, and reviews, with sentiment and share of voice. Semrush offers brand mention monitoring and an AI visibility tool that tracks how brands appear in AI-generated answers. Pick one tool, track the same competitor set every month, and read a sample of mentions yourself, since automated sentiment scores can miss sarcasm and context.
Recall surveys and brand lift
A recall survey asks your target buyers two questions in order: first "Which brands of [category] can you name?" (unaided), then "Which of these brands have you heard of?" with your logo among competitors (aided). Keep the questions, the audience, and the timing the same each round. SurveyMonkey's short video walks through the method.
If you run YouTube or Demand Gen ads, Google's Brand Lift is free. Google shows short surveys on YouTube to people who saw your ads and to people who were eligible to see them but did not, then reports the difference in ad recall, awareness, and consideration. Google says Brand Lift is not available for every account and that you need to contact a Google account representative to use it.
Video attention
For video, look past the view count. Track how much of each video people watch, where they stop, and what they click. Mindstamp reports record watch progress, answers, and clicks for each viewer, and the Google Analytics integration sends progress events at 10, 25, 50, 75, 90, 95, and 100% of a video to your existing property. Our guide to video engagement metrics explains which numbers to watch.
How long it takes to build brand awareness
Longer than most teams expect. LinkedIn's B2B Institute found that 96% of B2B marketers it surveyed expected to see the main effect of their ad campaigns within two weeks, while its research with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute shows buyers enter many markets rarely: 75% of companies buy computers once every four years, and 80% change banking services once every five years. A buyer who sees your brand this month may buy years from now.
Check mentions, branded search, and video attention monthly so that you can fix what is not working. Judge recall and share of voice by quarter and by year. If branded search and recall stay flat across several quarters of steady work, revisit the audience first, then the assets, then the channels.
Common questions
What is the difference between brand awareness and lead generation?
Brand awareness gets the right buyers to know and remember you before they need you. Lead generation asks people who are ready now to give you their contact details. The two support each other: buyers who already know you are more likely to put you on their shortlist when they are ready. Many campaigns do both: an awareness video for a broad audience can end with an optional next step for the few who are ready. Our post on the importance of adding a CTA to videos covers that last step.
How can a small business increase brand awareness on a small budget?
Go narrow and local. Claim your Google Business Profile, ask every happy customer for a review, pick one or two social platforms your customers use, and partner with other local businesses that serve the same people. Short phone-shot videos of your product and your team are cheap to make and easy to test. Our guide to video marketing for small business has a 30-day plan.
What are good brand awareness KPIs?
Branded search clicks, direct traffic, share of voice, aided and unaided recall, and ad recall lift. Follower counts and likes are weak signals on their own. Choose a few, set a baseline, and report them on the same schedule every month.
Does interactive video help brand awareness?
It helps most after someone presses play. Interactive video does not create reach by itself; reach still comes from search, social, ads, partners, and email. What it adds is a reason to stay and take part, and a record of what each viewer chose. In Wyzowl's 2026 survey, 31% of video marketers used interactive video and 20% rated it effective, well behind YouTube, so treat it as a way to deepen attention on traffic you already get. For campaign examples, see marketing video examples.
Where to start this week
- Record your baseline: branded search clicks in Search Console, direct sessions in Google Analytics, and a mention count for the last 90 days.
- Write your one-page brand sheet and fix the places where your logo, colors, or name are out of date.
- List the buying situations in your buyers' words and choose three to cover first.
- Make one short video for the first situation, with your brand in the first seconds and one question or choice for viewers.
- Pick one partner to approach this month and one place to ask customers for reviews.
