The top-1 most practical marketing idea I’ve found in the last 5 years:
Mindshare.
Mindshare is the space available in a person’s mind for a specific kind of business. Market share of the mind, if you will. There are only 1–5 open slots per business-type. But I see businesses constantly not account for this in their marketing strategy.
That’s not going to be you after you read this piece.
Here’s how Mindshare works and how to use it.
How It Works
The fact is we all have a finite amount of room in our memory.
And many things are battling constantly to occupy some of that space, including competitors. Most entrepreneurs do not recognize that their business is just one of the manifold things competing for that coveted, limited space in their customer’s mind.
But the fact remains the same.
Imagine that you’re brain is like a computer.
That computer has lots of folders that categorize and contain information, AKA memories. It’s easy to imagine that your brain has a particular folder for many different kinds of businesses. So you have a folder for doctors, a folder for lawyers, a folder for mechanics, and so on.
That means at this very moment you have a folder that contains businesses that are like your business.
Well, so does everyone else.
And that is how Mindshare works. Studies show we all have space for between one and five different companies inside a given category depending on how often we use that kind of product or service. We usually do business with the top one or two.
So now the game should be obvious: he who embeds his business in the top one or two slots wins.
How to Use It
The obvious next question becomes how do you go about embedding your company into one of those slots?
As you may imagine there are many factors, but two in particular move the needle.
The first factor is frequency.
Studies show that a consumer needs to hear about a business at least 36 times per year. The more the better.
The second factor is reputation.
This comes after someone decides to purchase and determines whether they purchase again in the future or refer friends and family. How well does your product or service deliver on the promise it makes to the customer? If your product or service sucks, then it doesn’t matter how good your marketing is.
In order to optimize your company for capturing mindshare, generate more high-quality touches to your customers and continually iterate on how well you execute the function of your organization.
Conclusion
There you have it.
Mindshare is the single most useful marketing idea that I’ve come across in the last several years. Now you know how it works and how to use it.
Happy Marketing.