Top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) is: "When people think of you first to fulfill their product or service needs." [1] Traditionally, TOMA has been achieved through traditional channels such as radio, newspapers, television, and magazines. Increasingly companies of all sizes are moving towards social media like Twitter and Facebook over against traditional channels. Chicago Now reports, "Close to four-in-ten employers (37%) plan to put a greater emphasis on social media in 2010 to create a more positive brand for their organization." [2] Therefore, TOMA refers to percent of respondents who name a brand or product first when asked to list companies in that industry sector—including, but not limited to traditional advertising channels.
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TOMA has traditionally been defined as "the percent of respondents who, without prompting, name a specific brand or product first when asked to list all the advertisements they recall seeing in a general product category over the past 30 days. Companies that are well known advertise heavily and have attention-getting ads that tend to receive the highest top of mind awareness scores in ad tracking studies. [3]
Another definition is, "Owning the space that your product or service occupies between your prospects' ears. That way, when they're ready to buy they think of you first."[4]
Another way to explain TOMA is to ask, "Whom do you think of first when you think of [product/service]?" The answer to that question is the company that has achieved top of mind awareness with you. TOMA varies from consumer to consumer.
"Top of mind awareness" is a way to measure how well brands rank in the minds of consumers. Companies that build brand awareness tend to also rank highly in "top-of-mind awareness." Thus, TOMA correlates strongly with market share of a product.
For companies that conduct high-dollar transactions, TOMA is particularly important. Mortgage brokers, real estate agents, and auto dealerships are particularly reliant on top of mind awareness. However, TOMA holds value for companies offering products and services of all transaction levels.
Top-of-mind awareness is very closely tied to customer relationship management (CRM). Better CRM practices typically yield a higher degree of top-of-mind awareness with potential clients.
Top-of-mind awareness as well as other CRM techniques can be handled by a company internally or outsourced to a 3rd party vendor such as:
- Customer Won, a life cycle customer loyalty tool set
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM
- mySAP CRM
- PeopleSoft CRM
- Salesforce
- Siebel
- Sugar CRM
- Zoho CRM
- update CRM
- Top of Mind Networks
- Maximizer CRM