It’s essential to stay on top of your customer’s minds – you want to be the one they come to once they have decided it’s time to invest in themselves, solve a specific problem, or buy a product that you offer.

So how do you do that in a sustainable, consistent way? In this article, we’re discovering

• 3 ways to always stay on top of your new, current, and previous customers’ minds
• How to systemize and automate it so it works effortlessly without much overhead
• 2 powerful tactics to implement when launching to new, particularly international, markets

Stay top of mind meaning

Simply, means that once you have attracted people who are interested in what you have to offer, you make sure that they think about you when it’s time to make a purchase, or when someone they know is describing a need, problem, or desire that aligns with what you offer.

Strategy 1: send regular emails

This is not necessarily the most automated method. However, since email marketing still is the highest-converting marketing method, we want to make sure we activate this for you as soon as possible. According to Hubspot, email the ROI on email marketing is an impressive $36 for every $1 spent. 

How to do effective email marketing to build brand awareness

First, you need a system that allows you to build a list of prospects and communicate regularly with them. This means group messaging, not 1:1. Although 1:1 messaging is also very something I recommend, for this purpose, I recommend a systematic group email communication strategy.

• “How many emails should I send?”
• “How do I create enough topics to write about?”
• “What if they unsubscribe? Or worse – hate me?”

First – you can’t send emails to consumers who have not decided to join your email list. And those who have joined are there (often) by their own choice. And, if they don’t want to keep receiving your emails, they can always unsubscribe.

Second, you need to send emails that don’t suck. Write emails that help people. Write emails that interest people. People personal emails, but not private ones.

Strategy 2: be where your people are

Where do your people gather regularly? Is it a certain tradeshow? Or maybe a magazine? When I say gather, I don’t necessarily mean physically even though that is also great (and finally doable after many years of canceled happenings!)

If your people regularly read a certain magazine, you could ask them to contribute, or if they don’t allow that, advertising is most often a possibility.

One of the best ways to build relationships and visibility for a local business is to cooperate with other local businesses. If you don’t have a store or a showroom, you could ask your local paint shop to host customer VIP evenings with you. Or, if your local real estate agent is interested, you could host joint open houses to meet your future customers.

Strategy 3: target people with your digital ads

This particular strategy is very effective and has a major effect on your brand awareness. And, you can do this for a tiny budget of 1-2 EUR per day.

Choose your favorite ad platform. I’d start with Facebook because it’s fairly easy to set up and manage, and the targeting possibilities are endless. Then, of course, Google ads are a great second choice.

Now, these platforms work differently but the strategy is the same: make sure your ads are targeting the same people multiple times.

In this case, I’m not talking about lead generation, I’m talking about being visible to the people who have already seen your brand and business, for example by visiting your website. A customer journey can be long, and that’s why you need to make sure you are visible to them, not only once but in several ways, in several places, and with several although cohesive messages.

Launching to new markets? This is powerful

One of the strongest strategies I used when launching my home decor line in 17 counties was to target people with certain interests and geographics in an area and start showing my ads to them. Then when we approached retail stores with our door-opener offer or exhibited at trade shows, they almost always said that they’d seen us “somewhere”.

The same thing when my clients launch at international trade shows – we use Google Ads to target the right keywords to be the top search results when people turn to Google to learn more about the trade show.

These magic tricks always improve the brand’s visibility and authority.

Why is it important to stay on top of your customer’s minds?

Customers need to develop trust in your brand before they are ready to buy from you. The best way to build that trust is to make sure they keep seeing you a bit everywhere, and most importantly: regularly.

When you are consistent in your communication and branding, your customer will feel that you are a company they can trust.

If you keep showing up in the same circles, either as a trusted partner or as a brand that’s often visible, and with a messaging that makes sense to your audience, you will create an emotional connection and become the one they turn to when it’s time to solve the problem you help them with.