I was invited to attend a presentation by The Daily Gleaner a few weeks ago. I knew what it was about, I knew what they were going to pitch, but I went anyway, more out of curiosity than anything else.
Sure enough, I was right. The topic was building your company’s top of mind awareness (TOMA) by advertising in The Daily Gleaner. And you know what? It works.
I liked the fact that they gave advice on building top of mind awareness. They also urged companies to trumpet what makes them unique, and they actually had some very good ad pricing to go with it. These are two very sound marketing initiatives you should be doing.
Actually, it was the very same type of presentation we put on back in the 1990s when I was working at The Gleaner. It was, and still is, a win-win. Advertisers get to built TOMA at a very reasonable cost and the newspaper garners lots of new revenue.
What is Top of mind awareness (TOMA)? The answer: When people think of you first to fulfill their product or service needs.
Building TOMA is based on repetition. This can be done by: newspaper, radio, TV, FaceBook, Twitter, signage and even emails like this one. Really, you don’t have to spend your whole marketing budget on it, but you should commit enough to make it worth your while.
The ultimate goal of TOMA is to be the first company a consumer thinks about when they need a product or service. If you build it, they will come.