Focus Your Share of Mind

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Share of Voice is a local business' percentage of all the advertising done in her market for her category.

Here's an overly simplistic example: Jane owns a kitchen design company in a town where there are 4 other kitchen design companies. Each of them runs a weekly newspaper ad, 10 weekly cable TV ads and 10 weekly radio ads. That's 21 ads each for a total of 105 advertisements in the market for kitchen design. Each owner has a 20% Share of Voice.

Share of Mind is the percentage of all the people exposed to those ads who think of Jane first and feel best about her when the decision to remodel a kitchen comes to mind.

Let's make another simplistic assumption: All of their ads say just about the same thing in the same manner. They look and sound like average ads.

With these assumptions, you could make the case that NONE of these businesses will be getting much increased business from their advertising efforts.

WHAT IF Jane were to FOCUS her ads on one media? Let's say she decided to take her entire budget and run 20 ads per week on a single cable channel, only focusing on remodel shows in the evening hours. Even if her ads remained average, the frequency and repetition she would achieve with the fans of the remodel shows would make a difference in her sales.

When these people finally decided to shut off the TV and get busy in their kitchen, Jane would be the first phone call because she'd be the first business they think of and feel confidence in…simply because of the repetition.

Quit trying to "reach" your way to advertising success. Start putting your money into some smart frequency and it won't be very long until your focused Share of Mind begins to pay off!

Share of Voice x Impact Quotient = Share of Mind

That's the first sub-formula in the Advertising Performance Equation. If you want to learn more about the rest of the equation, just sign up for my email list. You'll be the first to know about an exclusive learning opportunity!

3 thoughts on “Focus Your Share of Mind

  1. Phil Wrzesinski

    Dave,
    Excellent advice! Not only will she get an actual higher share of mind, she’ll get a perceptually higher share than her actual share because she will be seen to “own” that medium. She’ll be the “kitchen design company on TV”, which makes her competitors’ ads on TV even less effective in relation to hers.

    Owning a medium is always better than spreading your ads across many media. You not only get a higher frequency, it is perceptually higher than what you spent to get it because of that perceived “ownership”.

    For example, we have three carpet companies in town that all use billboards. But one is on many boards every month, the other two are on a few boards every now and then. If you ask anyone in town who is the carpet company on the billboards, they’ll all answer Griswold-Dalton. The other two companies are never mentioned. Guess who owns the share of mind and who is wasting their dollars?

    Reply
  2. Dave Young

    Phil…as Roy Williams often says, “Would you rather convince 100% of the audience 10% of the way, or 10% of the audience 100% of the way? The cost is identical.”

    Reply
  3. Elise Redlin-Cook

    Phil: I love that quote “Phil…as Roy Williams often says, “Would you rather convince 100% of the audience 10% of the way, or 10% of the audience 100% of the way? The cost is identical.” AND share of mind is a great illustration of that concept Dave. Thanks!

    Reply

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