Mindshare is one of those terms you might find yourself mystified by if your background isn’t in marketing. If you’re not familiar with it, it might sound strange, even silly, but harnessed properly it can be the key to long term success.
Every decision you take is an opportunity to grow your mindshare if you’re aware of it – if you’re not, you could be sending conflicting messages to your audience, and will be confusing them and shrinking your mindshare without even realising it.
What is Mindshare?
When your customers are making a purchasing decision, they have a lot of options to sort through. Whether you’re selling them soap, books or a mortgage, there are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of brands on the market all claiming to be the perfect solution.
Realistically, a customer might be aware of around ten of those brands, and from there, their decision is not necessarily just based on price and convenience. The brands they are most aware of, that have the biggest share of their recognition and attention – in short, mindshare – will dominate their thinking.
To give your brand a chance of long-term success, you need to make sure your mindshare is always growing. People need to know who you are if they’re going to choose you, and if you’re not going to get drowned in the competitive melting pot of commerce you need to be dominating the conversation.
Building Mindshare
One of the most important things you can do to build your mindshare is understand who your audience is. Building a deep understanding of them is tricky – it’s so easy to latch onto the first descriptor for your market that your research throws up. But if you can develop your understanding past “over 65s” or “North Londoners” you’ll reap the rewards. Your audience is broad and diverse, and you can understand it best as a series of groups, with different wants and needs that you need to appeal to in different ways.
Market segmentation, and targeting designed to appeal to the most important segments is a great way to ensure your marketing spend reaches as many hearts and minds as possible, you get the most mindshare growth for your investment. Some businesses benefit from a sudden quick boost in mindshare when they harness an event, or the mood of a moment, which can lead to marketing managers demanding their brand ‘goes viral’.
The surer way to increased mindshare is the slow road of providing consistent messaging designed to appeal to the biggest possible number of customers. It might take you months, but it builds you into a brand that will last years.
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