Top of Mind Marketing

What is top of mind marketing?

Top of mind is what every company wishes they could achieve when it comes to their marketing strategies. It relates to what brands consumers think of first, in relation to a certain product or service.

The correct term is Top-Of-Mind-Awareness or TOMA for its acronym. The goal of every company should be to attain top of mind awareness for all its brands, but this is very difficult to achieve without long term strategies and a large budget, because it is mainly done by saturating the market with brand exposure. In terms of media, it requires a lot of advertising on television, radio, newspapers, magazines and all digital platforms.

As far as the return on the investment, these can be seen long term and vary depending on the target market. Being the first name or brand that pops up in the minds of consumers of a particular product is priceless, and it’s exactly what top of mind means.

Alternatives to top of mind marketing

There are other ways of course to achieve top of mind when there isn’t a lot of money to spend on massive advertising. These are very effective in smaller markets but done right can also be effective in large target markets. Obviously, it requires very strategic marketing techniques and sound advertising strategies.

Becoming the first brand or company that people think of when they are looking for a certain service or product in their local area, can be achieved if the right marketing strategies are used and focused on a specific target market. A brand or company can attain top of mind awareness within a local area and then expand its TOMA to a broader area. Reaching top of mind awareness at a larger scale is no easy task. Therefore, companies may want to start by focusing on smaller markets or certain segments of consumers before branching out to much larger markets which will require larger investments.

How to achieve top of mind in a new business

Since Top of Mind awareness should be every company’s goal, strategies to achieve TOMA should begin even before starting a business. These are some of the things that should be kept in mind when trying to achieve top of mind awareness when starting a new venture.

It starts out with the name of the business and logo design:

• Choosing the name of the business or brand shouldn’t be taken lightly, because unless there is a lot of money to invest in advertising, a name that incorporates what the product or service is or does, requires a lot less budget to position.
• A logo is a brand in itself so its design should be an important step in the company branding process. A marketing company should always be used to design a logo, but there are some options (social media surveys) for those who rather do it themselves.

The business name and logo are very important when it comes to top of mind awareness, because the name has to be something either related to the product or service, or something easy that just rolls out of the tongues of consumers and the logo has to be simple enough to be identified easily. Either way, these in themselves will not get top of mind awareness unless it is established and positioned in the minds of consumers. This is the costly part of top of mind awareness.

However there are nowadays some alternatives which may help in brand awareness at lower costs. For example:

• Social Media
• Sports team sponsorships
• Event Marketing
• BTL – Below the Line Marketing
• Internet Advertising

All these should be part of your overall marketing strategy but one of the most overlooked top of mind awareness strategies is providing excellent customer service.

[p1vc-video]