I knew where to buy everything before I knew I was moving
This week I’m moving house! Pray for me!
For someone who hates moving (doesn’t everyone), I’ve done it an annoying amount. This is my fifth flat, in my third city (across two countries), in the last five years. And if all that moving has taught me anything, it’s:
A) Just how many things I manage to accumulate each year
B) Just how many things I still need to buy for the new place.
It’s quite the paradox. I don’t understand how I can own so much stuff and also nothing I need at the same time.
But one thing I have got very good at is the list.
My partner, Will, and I are currently working through a very snazzy spreadsheet of everything we need for our new flat. It’s potentially the most Type A document I’ve ever created (as a certified Type B person in every area except my work), if it weren’t for the biggest section being “miscellaneous” and filled with pretty rugs, lamps, and candle holders that are very much unnecessary.
Once I’d spent many evenings creating a Pinterest board for the colour palette of every single room, actually filling in the links for everything we needed to buy was a surprisingly quick job.
- We needed a new coffee machine, and instantly thought of De’Longhi (admittedly after a quick look at the Ninja prices).
- We needed new bedding and towels, so went straight to John Lewis.
- We needed a break from packing, so we quickly agreed to order a Domino’s.
Meanwhile, a furnishings brand I’d never heard of had clocked my search history, worked out I was moving, and started promoting pictures of comfy beds and nice bedding on what felt like every internet page I visited.
But their ad spend couldn’t get me to divert from the brands I’d already listed.
So how did I already know where to go? And why didn’t the brand that found me at technically the exact right moment get a look in?
I didn’t choose them, I remembered them.
The fact I filled out my spreadsheet quickly with links from brands I seemed to visit on auto-pilot is down to mental availability. I immediately went to the brands that were front of mind.
Byron Sharp defines mental availability as:
“the probability that a buyer will notice, recognise and/or think of a brand in buying situations”.
Importantly, it’s not just about awareness.
I’m aware of hundreds of pizza places, and Domino’s isn’t even my favourite one (it’s Rudy’s pizza if you care. Or maybe Pizza Express, I think that’s underrated).
But mental availability is about which takeaway option pops into my head at the point where I am surrounded by boxes, can’t face cooking, and have nothing in my fridge.
I probably only think about ordering a pizza 10 times a year (my normal go-to takeaway is Mexican or a chippy). And yet Domino’s shows up in my life what feels like 10 times a week. That isn’t because they think every single advert I see of theirs will make me hungry, but it’s to ensure that on each of those 10 annual occasions I do want pizza, they’re the first name I think of. And spoiler alert, it worked.
Most people you’re marketing to aren’t ready to buy.
This applies to bigger purchases, like a new bed or sofa, the same as it does smaller purchases like a pizza.
As a rule of thumb, about 95% of your potential customers aren’t actually in the market to buy your product or service at any one time. Only 5% may be in need of converting at that moment.
So it’s always best to assume that the vast majority of people who will one day buy from you aren’t shopping right now, but when they do start, people largely use their memories when buying, rather than searching. And that’s why your customers’ journey needs to start long before they need you.
Last-minute advertising is very good at reaching people who were already going to buy from you. But it’s much worse at convincing someone who’s never heard of you, especially when I have over 50 things to think about with a house move and want everything to go as smoothly as possible.
I’d also already written my list before I even began to pack, and before targeted ads could catch up to my thoughts.
This is supported by recent research from ‘Bain’, which found that around 90% of B2B buyers end up purchasing from their “day 1 list”: the vendors they already had in mind before they even started looking. And my spreadsheet was that day 1 list, which the new furnishings brand never made it onto.
It’s not a complete loss: I’m definitely open to shopping around new brands for the more aesthetic, smaller purchases like cushions and throws. But for the key bigger bits I genuinely need, I can reduce my own mental load by returning to the options I’ve categorised as ‘safe’ because they’ve lived in my brain for so long. The brands that have won at mental availability.
(There is a second half to this of physical availability, where you then also have to be easy to find and buy when that moment comes. But we’re focusing on mental availability for now).
If you can’t outspend them, out-specific them.
Say that you offer a service people only need once a year, or a product that lasts five years. Spending money and energy on being remembered can feel pointless when your customers are 12 months+ away from buying.
But then think about the moment they suddenly realise they need you and want it sorted within a month. Building that trust from scratch in four weeks is incredibly expensive, if possible at all.
Of course, not all brands I work with have the Domino’s franchise behind them, and some have very little funds for marketing at all. So here’s how I’d build mental availability without the Domino’s budget:
1. Own a moment rather than a category
Write down the specific situations your customer is in when they suddenly need you, and pick one or two to relentlessly attach yourself to.
A few years ago I worked with a law firm that went all in on “Divorce Day” (the first working Monday in January which can see a spike in divorce enquiries). A bit of a sombre example, but they could base a big part of their messaging around that. How they can support, how to avoid it being messy, how to prepare, how to avoid it all.
They worked so that when someone mentioned divorce day, you instantly thought of their firm. Meaning if a friend or family member asked them for advice about a divorce, they were the first company people recommended even if they hadn’t used them themselves.
2. Be recognisable before you’re remembered.
What do you want to be recognised for? This is super dependent on your business, and could be a phrase, a format, a colour, or a point of view that’s repeated until you’re bored of it. I talk about repetition a lot because it really is one of the most important things you can do. Think about the Sult lime green colour I now instantly associate with them because they use it constantly. Or how Grace Andrews (@graceandrewsss) is constantly talking about the creator economy, to the point it’s now what she’s known for. What’s your thing that you are recognised for?
3. Show up on a rhythm
One of my favourite newsletters to read is by copywriter Sara of ‘Between the Lines’. The other week she emailed about how it was episode 300. For 300 weeks (over 5.5 years!!) she has been sending out her Table Of Contents newsletter every single Tuesday without missing a week. Sara confessed it’s where most of her clients now find them, and that she rarely post on social media now because they’ve built such a strong email list that it does all their marketing for them. With her literal advise from that 300th newsletter being “consistency really does matter”. I’ve been subscribed for ~2 years and have bought into 2 of their products off the back of weekly newsletters with no other marketing support prompting me to use them.
When you combine all three of those things together, you get a business that is talked about even when you’re not in the room. This is the ultimate goal for mental availability, because it supports your referral rates with both:
A) Humans: If you can be mentally available for past clients, potential future clients and general people in relevant industries, you increase your chances of being recommended to the 5% that is ready to buy. You can be brought up by someone mentioning the specific moment you’ve attached yourself to, being recognised in the wild, or being part of someone’s routine with your rhythm of showing up.
B) AI: We all know that people are increasingly turning to AI for recommendations. One of the strongest predictors of being mentioned in Google’s AI overviews is how often a brand is mentioned across the web, because AI recommends businesses partly based on what other people say. So for you to win the AI referral, you need to get people talking about you.
Your customer’s journey started months ago
So often I hear businesses describe their customer journey as starting when someone enquires and ending when the invoice is paid. But your customer’s journey starts long before they’ve even consciously thought of you.
It starts when a friend shares your work, when your name comes up in a conversation you don’t even know has happened, or when someone’s spotted your brand colour or font and thought about you.
By the time they’re actually ready to buy, most of the decision has already been made. My moving spreadsheet is already created and filled out.
So if your ideal customer had their big moment tomorrow, would you already be on their list?
P.S: If you do have any brand recommendations I should check out for the more decorative parts of my new flat, I’m very open to suggestions! And equally interested in why they came to mind first!
