Top of Mind Awareness
Top-of-mind awareness is a marketing metric, indicating how well brands rank in the minds of consumers. It is something you can actually measure from a survey.
Let’s pretend we are asking 100 people to answer what brand comes to their mind when we say the word “hotel”. Let’s say that 70% of them answered “Hilton”, while other brands were spontaneously recalled for the rest of the 30%. In this hypothesis, it would mean that the Top of Mind Awareness of the “Hilton” brand is higher than its competitors.
Top of Mind Awareness can play a positive role when the consumer gets to choose a brand, needs/wants to buy a product/service.
Well, let’s give a practical example here. You’re looking for a carpet, you actually need a carpet…kids are growing up, the floor of your living room is made of marble and it might be pretty cool, but it’s also pretty cold, carpet is a must to keep the bottom of your little ones warm while they are playing on the floor…then “carpet” is on your shopping list. What do you do in order to get the carpet? What runs through your mind? This is what we call the “consumer journey” and it depends on many things, and that’s why Marketing is rather complex.
However, one thing you might do when you’re looking for a carpet is to make a quick mental search and try to recall the name of Carpet retailers where you could buy carpets from. Company Fun Rag is popping into your mind, so is Company The Carpetor… You actually recall these names and this for many reasons. The fact is: you recall these retailers and they are now purchasing options into the “purchasing funnel”.
Of course, we are not touching here the fact that the consumer journey and purchasing decision process is rather complex. Maybe you’re going to ask good friends for advice, maybe you’re going to ask your peer social media group, or maybe you’re just going to ask Google, and pick the 3 top companies that the search engine will return…That’s why SEO plays a big role, but again let’s not get side-tracked.
How to ensure your brand has a good Top of Mind Awareness?
Work [hard] on your Brand Awareness
- Get your desired (and possible) brand positioning right.
- Get your target market right.
- Find “where” your target market is — on which communication channel, media platform are they?
- Communicate creatively your message to your audience. That’s where you establish your positioning.
- Be consistent. Be patient. Build your brand every step of the way, across all channels, both internally and externally.
Do that. And do it better than your competitors. Because unfortunately having a superior product/service/business than your competitor is not enough. You need to communicate to your target market that it is the case, more…you must convince your target market that it is the case.
