How To Build Top Of Mind Awareness

Last week I shared the story of how important Top Of Mind Awareness (T.O.M.A.) is for a business when my wife and I needed someone to fix our air conditioning.  Today, I’ll share the basic elements of building Top Of Mind Awareness. 

It’s really this simple:

Repetition.

Let me say it again.

Repetition.

Again.

Repetition.

Say it with me.

Repetition.

Say it out loud.

Repetition.

Fill in the blanks

R_p_t_t_on.

Let’s see if you got it right.

e  e  i  i

Put it together and you have:

Repetition.

By now I have drummed the word Repetition into your head.  But let’s go deeper.

The music of your youth is music that you recognize instantly. Why?

You heard it all the time.  Repetition.

The popular music stations that play the newest hits, used to be called Top 40.

But in reality, they played the top 10 or 15 over and over again.  Some songs were played every 70 minutes at one station I worked.  As a jock, we hated it.  But listeners loved it.

It wasn’t just the fact we played the song so often, but it was also a song people liked due to the music and lyrics.

Apply this to your marketing.

Your message (Music & Lyrics) has to be good.  Something your target market wants to hear instead of mentally tune out.

And you need to expose that message to your target market repeatedly and often.

It’s that simple.

A few cautions to toss out:

Don’t abandon ship to quickly.  This applies to both your message and the medium you are using.

As consumers we are creatures of habit.  We will drive to work at the same time each day and listen to the same radio station or stations on our way.  We may switch on occasion but even if there are 30 radio stations, we’ll stick with no more than 2 or 3.

There are commercials on our radio station that have been on the air for nearly 10 years.  While that is extreme, it makes a point that you don’t always have to make a switch in your message just because you are tired of hearing your ad.

I used to have a doctor who advertised and never wanted to change her ads.  I let her except I insisted on making a slight change twice a year.  In the spring, I changed a phrase to, “Now that the warmer weather is here…” and 6 months later would change it to, “Now that the colder weather is here…”

One other warning about abandoning ship, this pertains to the advertising medium you are using. If you stop using one radio station and switch to another station, “just because I want to reach their listeners too,” you are not really doing what you are saying.  You are saying goodbye to the first radio stations listeners.  You are starting fresh, from scratch.  Those listeners you were talking to with your ads on station A are going to forget about you if you stop inviting them to do business with you.  Your competitor will take your place on station A while you are trying to establish yourself on station B.

If you can’t afford to be on both stations, you need to seriously evaluate your marketing plan.

Because you really want to build Top Of Mind Awareness with enough people to be successful, so people don’t have to hear your advertising when they have the need for what you sell.  Repetition builds Reputation. You are Top Of Mind already.