Awareness

Awareness is one of the four main issue areas for delivering product: awareness, image, usage, and satisfaction. A truly valid marketing effort has to address each of these issues.

Awareness refers to how and the extent to which a person or group perceives their environment. What they filter out they're not aware of.

Market surveys generally measure two kinds of awareness: unaided and aided. Let's say you have a great new craft ale you've named Dog Poop Ale. You've had it on the market for a while and sales are below where you need them to be to sustain your company. So you want to find out how many people area aware of Dog Poop Ale.

To measure unaided awareness, you ask, "Please name all the beers or ales you can think of." Turns out everybody mentions Budweiser (who wouldn't unless they've been living in a cave.) but nobody mentions Dog Poop.

To measure aided awareness, you ask the same question, but you prompt the respondent, to wit: "Next I'm going to read a list of beers and ales, and after I read each one, I would like you to say whether you have ever heard of it." Then you have the interviewer read each product and record the response.

The results tell you that everybody has heard of Budweiser, but 5% have heard of Dog Poop Ale. You could ask some follow up questions for each one they're aware of, like "How did you hear or become aware of this particular beer or ale?"

There are pros and cons to each measure, so consult a professional researcher before you decide to measure awareness, but that is what it is. But from this question you can construct a statistic called "Share of Mind." The idea is that before someone can buy something they have to know about it.

My second novel is out. Go to amazon.com and plug in my name and you'll come up with both mysteries, The Case of the Kearney Music School Murders and No Stop on Red. Neither is ready yet for the Kindle but will be.