Photo by THE ORGANIC CRAVE Ⓡ
Building brand awareness is a key strategy for any business. It’s how potential customers get to know, learn, understand and eventually love your brand!
You may already be aware that as a general rule of thumb, when it comes to converting an on-looker to a loyal customer they need to see your brand on average 7 times. This is because you have to build trust with your audience. And one way of doing that is by establishing a strong Brand Awareness strategy.
You need to keep showing up across various platforms and mediums including:
- Social media
- Email marketing
- Paid ads
- Billboards
- Affiliates and Influencers
- In retail stores
Like most types of marketing and advertising, these channels can come at a cost. If your brand is operating on a tight budget, traditional advertising might seem out of reach. But don’t worry—there are effective ways to build brand awareness without spending a dime or penny!
The Power of Brand Partnerships
All of the following strategies leverage brand-to-brand marketing activities. The key is finding like-minded brands that complement your offerings without directly competing with you. These partnerships create win-win situations where both brands gain exposure to new audiences.
1. Friend’s of Mention
This super easy brand partnership requires minimal effort. Simply create content featuring a like-minded brand, tying it to a relevant theme. For example, “Sharing our favourite sustainable brands for Earth Day” or “5 Wellness Brands We’re Loving This Season.”
Tag the brands in your posts, stories, and newsletters. Most brands will reciprocate (or get agreement in advance) by sharing your mention on their platforms, instantly exposing your brand to their audience. This creates a natural introduction that comes with the implied endorsement of a brand they already trust.
2. Discount Swap
Exchanging discount codes with another brand is one of the simplest forms of brand collaborations and can be very successful in acquiring new customers, boosting sales, and driving that all-important brand awareness.
How it works: You offer your customers a special discount code for your partner brand, and they do the same for yours. Each brand promotes the other’s discount code to their audience through email. This introduces your brand to an entirely new customer base that’s already primed to make purchases.
The beauty of this approach is its measurability—you can track exactly how many new customers came through this partnership and calculate its ROI.
3. Instagram Live Collaborations
An Instagram Live session is perfect for educating your audience and providing them with value, making them more likely to purchase from you. When you collaborate with another brand, it enables you to tap into their audience and introduce your brand to them in an authentic, engaging way.
Consider hosting a Live Q&A, a tutorial, or a behind-the-scenes look at your business. The conversational format helps humanise your brand and builds deeper connections with viewers. The partner brand can promote the Live to their followers beforehand, dramatically increasing your reach without spending a penny on advertising.
4. Blog Post Swap
Another great partnership idea to drive brand awareness, cement your credibility, and improve your SEO. You write a blog post for another brand, and the partner brand writes one for you.
This strategy works especially well because:
- It provides fresh content for both sites
- It introduces each brand to a new, relevant audience
- It creates valuable backlinks that boost SEO rankings
- It positions both brands as authorities in their space
Choose topics that showcase your expertise while providing genuine value to readers. For example, a sustainable clothing brand might write a guest post for an eco-friendly home goods company about “How to Build a Sustainable Wardrobe That Lasts.”
5. Co-create a Downloadable Guide
You’re an expert in your product, so why not give your audience a free downloadable guide that they would find useful? If you partner with another brand, you can create something really spectacular that neither brand could produce alone.
For example, if you have a skincare brand and you partner with a yoga brand, you could create a comprehensive guide on “Supporting Your Body from the Inside Out,” combining skincare tips with yoga poses for glowing skin. Both brands would promote the guide to their audiences, collect email addresses through the download process, and gain exposure to each other’s customers.
These guides often get shared beyond your immediate audience, creating additional exposure at no extra cost.
Sounds good right? Now to start!
Building brand awareness doesn’t have to break the bank. By leveraging strategic brand partnerships, you can expand your reach, establish credibility, and introduce your brand to new audiences.
The key to success lies in finding the right partners whose audiences would genuinely benefit from knowing about your brand. When executed thoughtfully, these collaborations create mutual value that far exceeds what either brand could achieve alone.
Remember that consistency is crucial—aim to implement at least one of these strategies each month to achieve that magic “seven touches” rule. Over time, these zero-budget activities will build a strong foundation of brand awareness that supports all your other marketing efforts and ultimately drives sustainable business growth.
Start by identifying three potential brand partners today, reach out with a specific collaboration idea, and watch your brand awareness grow without touching your marketing budget.
