Building mental availability and brand — a guide for founders
(Read time: 10 minutes)
Founders are built differently. When they notice a problem, they want to solve it — because that’s how big businesses are built, right?
Only a handful of founders will focus on brand strategy and brand building — the rest will just follow the crowds and do what’s right to growth hack it to a superficial number like $1M.
For the latter, I have one question — When your potential customers need a solution, will they think of your brand?
“Will they think about your brand?” is a combination of a multitude of factors, so much so that Byron Sharp, Professor of Marketing Science and Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, University of South Australia wrote about it in his book How Brands Grow, which was published in 2010.
The problem nowadays is that
- We have access to immense amounts of information on our fingertips
- Our mental space is constantly bombarded with information because of how much input we have
- Over time every consumer has developed mental shortcuts (heuristics) to help them make quick decisions.
Brands that are mentally available have created strong neural pathways in our brains, making them easily retrievable when we’re in a relevant buying situation.
The baseline of what he said was three parts
- Founders need to build brand to stand out in the crowded market space of today
- Having a great product does not mean customers will buy it, especially if it’s a new brand
- To make prospects convert, you need to build mental availability by standing out in the market with distinctive assets and memorable messaging
- Having mental availability relies on repetition and distinction
Why does mental availability matter?
You can be everywhere, but are you everywhere for the right reasons? The goal isn’t just to be known — it’s to be remembered at the precise moment a consumer has a need.
Brand awareness and mental availability aren’t interchangeable. You might be aware of multiple smartphone brands, but the one that comes to mind first when you need to upgrade is the brand that has successfully built mental availability. Is your brand simply known, or does it live rent-free in your customer’s mind?
Brand awareness and mental availability are not the same thing.
Brand awareness revolves around being recognized when pitted against competitors.
Mental availability gauges how easily and quickly your brand comes to mind in relevant situations.
Brand awareness helps you get known. Mental availability makes you the instinctive choice when your customer has a need.
Byron Sharp adds on that that being aware and being knowledgeable about a brand are interlinked. Aware but know little, you have low mental availability. The opposite, high mental availability where consumers have a lot of data and resources that help them make a decision quicker.
Why focusing on mental availability is crucial for your startup?
The key to remember here is not just to be louder but to be more strategic. For instance, the neobank Niyo positioned itself with a fresh, user-friendly design and approachable tone, distinguishing itself in a market where traditional banks focused on serious, corporate tones. The result? They broke the clutter, and now, when people think of hassle-free digital banking, Niyo springs to mind.
Here’s how you can do it:
- No startup has immense budgets to begin with. If you think of availability + awareness — you’ll think of impact > just doing. You’ll think of what has to be said > what can be said and that will change the growth trajectory slowly, with time, for your startup.
- You’ll make decisions based on what your competitors aren’t doing. Being first in mind, is the key focus here. You’ll look for gaps that exist in the market, on social media, or in print — or whatever medium you pick, and go after this — so your consumers know you exist, and pick you over a competitor.
- You’ll make your marketing efforts focus on building brand rather than short term metrics. Short term metrics feel good, in the short term. Brand building metrics make you feel good when you look back 10 years through the journey.
How to focus on brand building + building mental availability
- Category Entry Points (CEPs)
Brands are thought of when there is a signal or a cue. If your brand’s goal is to be top of mind, and have high mental availability, you have to think about what makes consumers connect with the brand.
Are you considering how your product fits into your customer’s life, both practically and emotionally?
The stronger the linkage, the faster the brand will pop into their minds, and the more likely they are to buy. These cues that trigger thoughts about your brand are what we call Category Entry Points or CEPs.
Each category has situational and need-state cues that prompt category purchasing. Understanding this will help you showcase your brand positively in these situations/on these formats.
- What triggers a need for my product or service?
Identify the specific situations, problems, or desires that would make someone think, “I need a solution like what we offer.” For instance, if you’ve founded a meal-kit delivery service, triggers might include feeling time-pressured, wanting to eat healthier, or looking to learn new cooking skills. - Where and when are my potential customers most likely to need my product?
Map out the physical locations and times when your solution would be most relevant. For a productivity app, this might be in the office first thing Monday morning, or during team meetings when tasks are being assigned. - Who influences the decision-making process for my category?
Understand if the purchase decision is made individually or if others are involved. For a B2B SaaS product, this might include not just the end-user, but also IT managers, finance teams, and C-suite executives. - What emotions or feelings are associated with the need for my product?
Identify the emotional states that might drive someone to your category. If you’re offering a fitness tracking device, associated emotions might include frustration with current fitness levels, excitement about starting a new health journey, or anxiety about health issues. - How does my product or service fit into my customers’ broader goals or lifestyle?
Understand the larger context in which your offering exists. For an eco-friendly cleaning product, this might involve considering how it fits into customers’ overall sustainability efforts or their desire to create a healthier home environment.
By thoroughly exploring these questions, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of your brand’s CEPs.
Doing this activity will also allow you to create marketing strategies and brand associations that align closely with the moments when your customers are most likely to need your product or service, thereby increasing your brand’s mental availability.
Think of Amul. Their brand is top of mind whenever consumers think of butter or dairy products because of their mascot, their on-time branding activities that make the instance relevant to their brand and their cultural sensitivity when publishing. The Amul girl’s witty ads also make the brand memorable in a crowded dairy market.
2. Create distinctive brand assets
These are the assets that cause brand recognition and recall — visually, auditorily and verbally.
This means for example, if everyone in your industry is mostly using yellow or green in their branding — maybe use purple?
If you have heard the “Paytm Karo” jingle — maybe if your brand is interaction focused, create a jingle that resonates
Or if everyone in your industry is serious sounding, make your brand less boring by sounding fun and approachable. Think of neobanks in this instance
This will help you do two things
- Clutter break
- Prevalence and relevance building
3. The recency bias/ availability heuristic
What we see/hear more often, we remember most often. This means, recent and frequent exposures have a disproportionate impact on mental availability.
Are you ensuring that every customer interaction, no matter how small, reinforces the same brand promise?
Consistent and repeated brand exposure leads to presence in the consumer’s mind, leading to a decision bias because they can only think of you when they think of the category.
Asian Paints is a classic example of a brand that has built mental availability in a high-involvement category (home renovations). Their “Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai” campaign links their product with emotional value and personal storytelling, making them not just a paint company but a brand that enhances home living. By tying emotional benefits with their product, they are top-of-mind during home renovation projects.
4. Creating associations that are relatable
The more associations a consumer has to your brand, the more likely they are to recall it when needed. For brands, this means creating multiple, diverse associations with your brand.
When it comes to creating this we have to go back to brand strategy basics
- Create customer personas that are vivid
- Think of emotional benefits as the highest order reasoning of purchase
- Think of a day in the life of your consumer and where/how/when they’ll use your product
- Create a purpose, vision and values that resonate and you actively care about. Brands that care about something are more likely to be considered as ‘better brands’
Think about how Harley Davidson has done an excellent job of positioning itself as a lifestyle + community brand. It’s not just a motorcycle; it represents a certain rugged, adventurous identity. By associating itself with exploration and brotherhood through its HOG branding and community-building events they have created strong mental availability in a niche, aspirational market.
Last but not least, you must understand buying behavior to tailor your activities to build mental availability.
There are three main categories of buying behavior
- low involvement
- medium involvement
- high involvement
Low involvement purchases are routine, and require minimal cognitive effort. Founders should focus on reinforcing brand consistency and visibility at every touchpoint, ensuring their product is the go-to without much thought
Ask yourself, how can you create habitual loyalty in your customers?
Medium involvement purchases are one where they are aware of competition but rely on familiar options that already hold mental availability. Founders must differentiate their brand within this familiar set, ensuring their product is always present when choices are made, by investing in brand salience and distinctiveness
Ask yourself, What are you doing to make your product the obvious choice?
High involvement purchases are those where the cost of choosing is high, and replacements are hard so it’s a one time decision that lasts for a few years. Here, founders need to focus on building trust, demonstrating expertise, and positioning their brand as a clear, reliable option.
Ask yourself, is your brand conveying trustworthiness at every touchpoint?
To recap, here’s what you need to do to build mental availability:
- Map your CEP
- Focus on brand building as a distinctive differentiator
- Leverage presence and recency bias
- Build associations with your brand through content and experiences
- Measure and iterate using surveys and behavioral data
Remember, building mental availability is a long-term strategy. As a founder, it’s tempting to focus solely on short-term metrics like clicks and conversions. But investing in mental availability now will set the foundation for sustainable brand growth in the future.
Here are some tips for how you can do it:
- Encourage UGC content > brand created content. This will bring in relevancy and conversation amongst like-minded folks
- Start telling stories inside-out. Get the founder involved and share stories that matter to your TG. Explain the why and how of your brand as a whole, and the day to day
- Design your brand for impact. The goal here is to stand out, not blend in — good design costs good money, but that good design will help you build the associations you need with your TG
- Become a brand that isn’t just one-way but conversational. This will help your early set of users have trust in the brand, and what you’re building for them
- Use a few channels to talk to consumers, don’t go after every channel. Test which ones work and then go after that for deeper-rooted conversations and connections. Think email, slack, discord — pick what works for your TG
- Do something unexpected that will catch the audience’s eye. It should not be gimmicky and it should also increase visibility, brand and your presence in the market.
Feel like your brand needs a boost?
Our team of brand strategy experts at TFL are here to help you navigate the complexities of brand building and create a tailored strategy to boost your mental availability.
Let’s chat! Book a consultation with us today, and let’s explore how we can make your brand unforgettable.
