In order to prosper, brands need to come up with fresh ideas to grab consumers’ attention, create enduring relationships with them, and always adapt to remain relevant.
A carefully thought-out brand growth strategy is the key to long-term expansion and success.
The comprehensive article examines the most effective brand growth strategies prosperous brands use to grow and draw a devoted fan base.
What is a Brand Growth Strategy?
Your brand resembles a plant. You want it to increase in size, strength, and vibrancy as time passes.
A brand growth strategy is similar to a gardening plan that details how you will support and tend to your brand so that it thrives and draws in more admirers (customers).
Your company growth strategy is a plan or set of actions aimed at increasing a brand’s recognition, perception, and, ultimately, success and expansion in the market.
Certain important components of a strategy for expanding a brand consist of:
- Spreading awareness: Discovering innovative methods to attract additional individuals to recognize and understand your brand, similar to how a gardener strategically places their flowers in a prominent location.
- Establishing a good reputation: Developing a solid, favorable brand identity linked to excellence and dependability, like a gardener maintaining the health and appearance of their plants.
- Engaging with your audience: Recognizing the preferences of your potential customers and customizing your brand’s character and communication to connect with them, similar to how a gardener adjusts their methods to suit the individual requirements of their plants.
- Broadening horizons: Seek new avenues, markets, or collaborations to expose your brand to a larger audience, similar to how gardeners search for new locations to sow their flowers.
- Staying up to date: Consistently update and change your brand to stay in line with shifting trends and preferences, much like how a gardener adjusts their gardening techniques with the changing seasons.
Also See: Most Profitable Growth Marketing Channels
12 Brand Growth Strategies You Should Follow in 2024
The most effective brand awareness strategies should align with your brand’s unique identity, target audience, and business objectives, creating meaningful connections and driving sustainable growth.
Here is a list of 12 proven strategies for high brand growth:
1. Cultivate Brand Ambassadors
Successful brands know that one of their most powerful marketing forces is the love and advocacy of their biggest fans.
Brand ambassadors cultivate that passionate energy by empowering loyal customers and influencers to become voluntary brand champions.
Do not only use paid advertising, also provide ambassadors with exclusive information, early access to products, special privileges, and other benefits.
This leads the ambassadors to feel appreciated and committed to the success of the brand.
In return, those ambassadors authentically promote the brand through their voices and networks, sharing positive experiences, creating content, providing feedback, and more.
Fashion brands have led the way in ambassador programs. For example, Revolve seeks out fashionistas who have showcased their clothing on social media.
They are made official ambassadors through gifted merchandise and commissions on sales they influence. Their authentic, trendsetting posts become marketing gold.
Tech brands like NVIDIA also cultivate gaming influencers as ambassadors by giving them early product access and putting them in the spotlight, knowing their passionate reviews and content will carry weight with their audiences.
For bigger brands, even employees make great ambassadors when empowered to share company updates and promotions on their personal networks proudly.
It humanizes the brand through trusted voices.
The most effective ambassador programs treat their advocates like insiders and valued partners rather than faceless promoters.
Also See: How to Calculate Market Growth
2. Leverage User-Generated Content
People trust recommendations and content from real customers far more than paid ads from brands.
User-generated content (UGC) taps into this by encouraging existing fans to organically create and share their own photos, videos, reviews, and experiences featuring your products.
Instead of trying to arrange every marketing piece themselves, smart brands realize the immense value in empowering customers to showcase the authentic ways they use and love the brand through UGC.
It provides powerful social proof that can’t be faked.
For example, GoPro’s entire brand is built around the incredible user-generated footage from its cameras that customers share of its customers performing amazing stunts and adventures.
It leverages that footage for advertising by resharing fan content across its channels.
Travel brands like Airbnb and Royal Caribbean rely heavily on UGC from guests sharing photos and experiences at their rental properties and cruise ships.
This aspirational content inspires others to book.
Fashion brands are very enthusiastic about UGC, which involves stylish customers modeling their outfits.
Companies like Fashion Nova actively reshare customers’ Instagram looks, making those fans feel celebrated while organically promoting their clothing.
Find ways to incentivize and make it easy for passionate customers to create shareable content through contests, branded hashtags, photo studios at events, and more.
Brands then re-distribute the best UGC across owned and paid channels.
Also See: Top User-Generated Content Examples For Your Inspiration
3. Gamification
Gamification takes the basic motivations and fun of games and bakes them right into your brand’s marketing to boost engagement and build loyalty.
It taps into the same delightful compulsions that make video games addictive: setting challenges, earning rewards, unlocking achievements, competing on leaderboards, etc.
Except in this case, those game mechanics are designed to incentivize interactions with your brand.
The My Starbucks Rewards program is a great example, which works almost like a video game.
You earn “stars” for purchases that level you up and unlock different rewards tiers and exclusive benefits. It’s fun to watch your status increase.
Nike+ also explored gamification by letting users track and earn badges for their athletic activities through apps and fitness devices.
Dropbox grew rapidly by awarding storage space as a reward for referring friends. Suddenly, spreading the word about their brand became a game of earning bonuses.
Make interactions with your brand feel more like engaging gameplay.
Gamification encourages customers to keep coming back and staying loyal by offering a feeling of accomplishment, competition, and advancement as they aim for the next reward or goal.
Also See: Growth Marketing Funnel Creation: 5 Key Examples To Follow
4. Augmented Reality (AR) Integration
Augmented Reality enables brands to connect the digital and physical worlds creatively, bringing customers joy.
It employs technology to display digital images, data, and user engagement over the physical world surrounding you.
A great example is how furniture brands like IKEA and Wayfair use AR.
Through their mobile apps, you can virtually place 3D models of their couches, tables, etc., into a view of your living room.
This lets you visualize how a potential purchase would look and fit in your home before buying.
For makeup brands like L’Oreal and Sephora, AR enables customers to “try on” several lipstick shades, eyeshadow looks, etc., virtually on their faces through mobile cameras.
Even food brands have jumped on AR, like Burger King, which uses it to make a virtual animated food mascot “bomb” appear to be spawned from the code on their packaging.
Sportswear brands utilize AR to let consumers model and customize shoes and apparel virtually to see how different colors and styles would look on themselves.
AR gives customers an immersive, interactive way to experience products virtually before purchasing. It adds helpful visualization and personalization that goes beyond static photos and descriptions.
5. Collaborative Partnerships
This strategy involves teaming up with other brands or influencers that complement your own.
You can connect with new potential followers that you might not have otherwise met and promote on multiple channels.
For example, co-branded credit cards, like the Delta SkyMiles American Express cards, enable both companies to access each other’s customer base.
Frequent Delta flyers get an Amex card tailored to their interests, while Amex can appeal to airline loyalists.
Fashion and beauty collaborations are another common use case.
When Balmain partnered with Beats by Dre on custom headphone designs, it exposed the luxury fashion house to the audio brand’s younger audience.
Meanwhile, Beats could capitalize on Balmain’s designer cache.
Influencer partnerships work similarly, borrowing someone else’s trusted voice and audience.
When vitamin brand SugarBearHair collaborated with influencers like the Kardashians and other celebs, their products received celebrity co-signs from millions of built-in fans.
Find partners that provide mutual benefit without compromising brands.
A scholarly book publisher likely wouldn’t collaborate with an alcohol brand as their values would clash.
However, a wine brand collaborating with a high-end kitchen retailer could create an entertaining experience.
6. Subscription Models
Instead of just selling one-off purchases, subscriptions keep customers returning month after month by offering ongoing services or replenished products.
It fosters recurring engagement and revenue for brands.
One of the most successful examples is Amazon Prime.
For an annual fee, subscribers get premium shopping benefits like free shipping, streaming video, ebooks, and more. This keeps them locked into Amazon’s ecosystem of services.
For consumer products, Subscribe & Save models like Dollar Shave Club for razors and Birchbox for grooming samples eliminate the hassle of remembering to repurchase essentials.
The convenience makes subscribers stay with your brand.
Services like HelloFresh and Blue Apron introduced the idea of subscriptions in the kitchen.
They send weekly packages with pre-measured ingredients and recipes for homemade meals, monitoring food spending while reducing trips to the supermarket.
There is a growing demand for non-physical subscription services like Microsoft 365.
This service provides office applications in the cloud for a monthly charge instead of buying software with a single payment.
Adobe provides subscriptions to its Creative Cloud, which includes software like Photoshop, in a comparable way.
Brand subscriptions offer a consistent revenue flow instead of fluctuating sales patterns. Subscribers, on the other hand, regularly pay for a brand and are more engaged and loyal.
Also See: 12 Most Effective B2B Lead Generation Strategies For Explosive Brand Growth
7. Experiential Marketing
Experiential marketing allows brands to create real-life experiences that let customers connect with the brand in memorable, multi-sensory ways instead of simply advertising their product’s greatness.
It involves organizing interactive physical experiences and gatherings that showcase the brand’s character and encourage emotional bonds through direct engagement.
For example, the Volkswagen Smile Experience tour is a branded pop-up experience that lets people explore the features of Volkswagen cars through fun interactive games, photo ops, and professional dance lessons incorporating the vehicles.
It brought the brand’s “fun” factor to life.
Red Bull is the master of experiential marketing, hosting mind-blowing events like its annual Flugtag competition, which challenges crafty participants to build homemade flying machines and pilot them off a ramp into the waters below.
It’s wild, but you’ll never forget the Red Bull brand after witnessing such an experience.
Make meaningful, emotional memories by letting people physically engage with and experience the brand.
8. Pop-up Experiences
Pop-up experiences allow brands to create temporary, immersive installations and attractions that engage visitors and put their brand front and center.
Bring the brand to life through experiences that excite and delight potential customers for a limited time.
These unexpected pop-ups generate tons of buzz, word-of-mouth, and social media sharing.
Sports brands often create pop-up experiences around major events.
For the World Cup, Adidas opened “The Makers Series” pop-ups, featuring workshops led by famous athletes and combining retail with training experiences.
Away, the trendy luggage company, opened shoppable pop-up stores in several cities during peak travel seasons so customers could experience their products in person.
Bring a taste of your brand to unexpected places for an air of exclusivity and immersion that traditional retail can not match.
9. Storytelling
Storytelling helps brands to establish connections with audiences by crafting narratives that evoke feelings while forming enduring memories.
Successful brand storytelling involves more than simply talking about the product.
It uses interesting characters, engaging plots, and imaginative narrative techniques to convey the core beliefs, values, and lifestyle that your brand represents.
For example, Apple’s “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” campaign.
By using captivating storytelling and images of famous revolutionaries such as Gandhi and Einstein, Apple was positioned as a cutting-edge brand for people who are willing to challenge the existing norms.
Outdoor brand REI has done an amazing job of storytelling through content like their Force of Nature videos and podcasts profiling women adventurers and conservationists.
It brings their brand messages of sustainability and gender equity to life inspirationally.
Coca-Cola’s short films and interactive digital stories about its iconic polar bears and Santa truck tell heartwarming holiday tales the whole family enjoys year after year, reinforcing the brand’s association with festive feelings.
Find authentic brand narratives that respectfully talk about your target audience’s struggles, values, and aspirations in memorable ways. Make them the heroes of your story.
10. Personalization at Scale
People expect brands to understand and cater to their wants and needs.
Personalized marketing uses data and tech to deliver customized experiences that make each customer feel special.
Rather than sending out generic messages, brands can examine customer data on purchases, browsing activity, preferences, etc., to create personalized marketing campaigns for each person.
A great example is Netflix, which customizes its homepage layout and video recommendations for each user based on their unique viewing history and tastes.
This serves up a personalized, relevant experience.
E-commerce brands like Amazon surface product suggestions based on past purchases or items you’ve browsed. This creates a custom-curated shopping experience.
Travel sites prompt you for personalized preferences like hotel amenities, budget, and purpose of travel to customize their recommendations and search results.
Adidas leverages personal data for customized product recommendations and personalized emails.
The benefits of personalized marketing are improved relevance, brand affinity, customer loyalty, and higher conversion rates.
People respond better to messaging and experiences tailored just to their own interests rather than one-size-fits-all.
Data privacy is important, too. However, when done transparently, personalization powered by insightful data makes the customer experience feel concierge-level and meaningful.
Also See: Growth Marketing Vs Performance Marketing: Key Differences
11. Cause Marketing
The majority of individuals desire to back businesses that align with their beliefs.
Associating your brand with environmental or social causes shows you have values beyond profit. This is known as cause marketing.
An example is the partnership between Microsoft and charitable groups, which provides resources, technology, and training through its Microsoft Philanthropies programs in impoverished areas worldwide.
Outdoor clothing company Patagonia supports environmental causes by financing conservation projects and being open about its production methods.
This resonates with its customers, who prioritize sustainability.
By aligning with causes important to its customers, a brand can strengthen brand loyalty and connection. This indicates that the company has a larger goal beyond simply earning profits.
12. Brand Activism
Brand activism is about companies being vocal and taking principled stances on major social or political issues their customers care deeply about.
It’s about using their brand influence and actions to drive positive change around causes that align with their corporate values and ethical beliefs. It shows they have an authentic purpose beyond just profits.
A great example is Patagonia’s constant activist brand championing environmental causes like sustainability, ethical sourcing, and conservation. They truly walk their eco-friendly talk from supply chain practices to funding grassroots activism.
Dove has built an entire platform around their Real Beauty brand activism against stereotypical beauty standards through campaigns featuring unedited, diverse women’s bodies and stories.
Lifestyle brand Bombas was founded specifically as an activist brand fighting homelessness. For every purchase made on their site, Bombas donates clothing.
Brand activism attracts like-minded customers who respect companies that put purpose over profits on the social issues they care about most.
It builds intense emotional loyalty and brand affinity.
Conclusion
Establishing a strong, recognizable brand is no easy task, but companies can achieve remarkable development potential by implementing the appropriate plans.
The best brand growth tactics are those that genuinely reflect a business’s distinct personality, resonate with the target market, and foster deep connections.
Brands can become market leaders by carefully combining these strategies, enticing consumers, and making a favorable, long-lasting impression on the community.
