Brands that have earned high top-of-mind awareness gobble up market share effortlessly. If your brand is the first that comes to mind as a person considers a purchase, you’re not one of the many options from which consumers must decide to choose—your brand is THE option. If your brand is easily recalled, it shows you are effectively standing out and reaching your target market.
The average consumer encounters more than 5,000 brand exposures a day. The shopping process has changed considerably, with mobile used as a key component during pre-trip consideration and even while browsing the aisles in-store. Mobile browse time is 156x greater than desktop browsing time, so it makes sense to engage in rigorous mobile marketing. In fact, your brand can leverage mobile at every step on the consumer’s path to purchase to reinforce top-of-mind awareness.
Does Top of Mind Awareness Matter?
Top-of-mind awareness is a way of measuring a brand’s immediate and long-term impact. “Unaided” brand awareness is another way of putting it. How easily does your brand come to mind when your target demographic is pondering your products or services? Awareness may be the first step in the path to purchase, but it remains most crucial; without awareness, there can be no interest, desire, or action.
A 2018 Nielsen study explored the importance of top-of-mind awareness with regard to auto shopping. They found quality awareness through an omnichannel marketing strategy beat the quantity of single-channel repetition. They found 90% of purchase intent is due to (unaided) top-of-mind awareness. Vehicle shoppers with top-of-mind awareness had 10x the purchase intent as those with aided awareness.
Digital advertising—and more recently, mobile advertising—has nine times the impact in regards to top-of-mind awareness when compared to TV, print, search, or radio.
How to Leverage Mobile on the Path to Purchase
Awareness: Use mobile to hit purchase triggers.
- Delight new prospects with a promotional offer in a mobile shopping app.
- Appeal with mobile video to create a memorable first impression.
Consideration: Use mobile to reach shoppers conducting research.
Like email, a mobile app can push relevant, personalized content to customers. - Use mobile video to educate consumers about how your brand stacks up against competitors.
- Include mobile scannable codes on product packaging or signage to provide added information.
- Employ app gamification once a shopper enters the store to ensure engagement.
Conversion: Use mobile to dictate where and when to buy.
- Offer multiple ways to buy, including BOPIS or mobile checkout.
- Customize location-based marketing messages to engage local users.
- Use push notifications to provide relevant product launch and sale information.
- Use a mobile app to incentivize purchases with loyalty points or rewards.
Evaluation: Use mobile to improve customer experience.
- Send personalized text offers directly related to past purchase history and preferences.
- Solicit instant feedback with mobile surveys to improve products and services.
- Use mobile beacons to greet individual shoppers upon entering the store.
Retention: Use mobile to stay top-of-mind.
- Promote special events through SMS text marketing.
- Allow mobile reward redemption to foster a sense of continuity.
- Reach customers wherever they are with push notifications.
A brand’s work is never done, even after the purchase has been made.
Top-of-mind awareness ensures that the customer returns to make another purchase (and likely spends more per order than less loyal counterparts.) Mobile is a valuable tool in this regard, as it allows the ability to remain connected to the consumer any time, any place.
Shopkick is a mobile marketing platform that helps brands and retailers guide shoppers along their path to purchase journey. App users receive “kicks” (rewards points) by engaging with partner brands—flipping through lookbooks, watching mobile videos, scanning products, and making desired purchases. These kicks can be redeemed for gift cards of choice. Shopkick engages users through every step along the path to purchase; shoppers check the app for partner offers during the awareness and consideration phases, interact with educational content in-store during the consideration and evaluation phases, and make purchases to receive even more points for the final conversion. After creating a positive shopping experience, retention and loyalty are further solidified.
If you care about staying top-of-mind with consumers, become a Shopkick partner today. Our mobile shopping app users spend hours engaging with brand partners. Why not yours? Read our success stories or contact Shopkick to learn more.
Image courtesy of Zoriana Zaitseva
