Sharing Your Market (Part 1)

If your business relies on customers to be successful, understanding your potential customer base, your conversion rates as well as your retention is a key to sustainability.  As technological advances continue to increase market sizes, competition and the need for innovation, staying on top of your key market variables has never been more important.  In this age of sometimes overwhelming amounts of data, it becomes increasingly more critical to develop a deep understanding of how your product is performing or is capable of performing in your chosen markets.  The effective utilization of data becomes paramount to sustainable success.

In any market, for any product, there are three distinct but equally important control variables that must be understood in order to gauge the potential of your product, the impact your product has, and the value your organization adds to it.

In any organization, for any product, there exist hierarchies necessary to align your products, processes and people with the market and your customers.  Fitting these hierarchies within the confines of the different shares of the market creates a consistent approach to identifying risks and rewards as well as hand-off points and the definition of organizational process and measurement.

The table below briefly identifies each share of the market, a basic description and the ideal department its success is attached to.

SHARE	DESCRIPTION	DEPARTMENT	A.S.K.
Mind Share	% of Market that is familiar with your product	MARKETING	Attracting the Customer
Market Share	% of Market buying your product	SALES	Satisfying the Customer
Wallet Share	% of Individual Customer Spend being spent on your product	CUSTOMER SUCCESS	Keeping the Customer

Mind Share –

For this purpose, Mind Share is defined as a percentage of the number of those potential purchasers that are aware of your product divided by the number of potential purchasers of your product.

i.e. – If you have determined that there are 10,000 potential users of your product and that 2000 of them are familiar with your brand and your product, your Mind Share is 20%.

Of the three shares, this is the first part of developing a growing business, without it, you can’t obtain the other levels. Mind share is about the customer knowing and understanding what your company does, how it does it, and most importantly, how what you do can benefit them.  Until you get out there, you have no idea which customers know and understand what you can do for them.  While you can make assumptions about who knows you and who doesn’t, asking the customer and sharing information directly with them is the only way to know for sure.

This share directly relates to attracting the customers.  In order to gain mind share, a conscious effort must be made to inform as many of your customer base as possible the entire solution that your organization can offer them.  Don’t assume that a customer knows what you can do for them unless you are sure that they have been thoroughly informed.

Organizational Hierarchy

From an organizational sense, mind sense is for the most part a Marketing function.  The ability to reach out to the masses to inform them of what you do, how you do it and what value you add can be done most effectively through a proactive marketing effort.  While your Sales Force can be led based on information and feedback from your marketing campaigns, their role in developing Mind Share is relatively limited and driven by the Marketing Department.

A Marketing Department serves multiple functions in an organization.  In regards to Mind Share, their responsibility is creating product awareness within a defined market for potential consumers.  Once that awareness has been confirmed, it creates a natural and effective hand-off point to the Sales Department.

Importance

A business survives based on getting people or organizations to purchase their products which makes understanding what your market consists of.

The value of Mind Share can be seen in its ability to quantify your market from an overall potential as well as a way to identify which part of a larger market you can focus your sales efforts on.  

The feedback given from potential customers at this phase can be crucial to making changes to your marketing efforts, your potential customer base and even your product.  Understanding who you are targeting gives you the opportunity to omit people or entities who aren’t good fits for your product and allows you to focus on just the ones that have potential of becoming a customer.

Measurements

Total Market Base(MB) – This measurement can be based on a number of variables utilizing demographics and geography.  The Total market base should be defined by counting all people or entities with the ability to spend money on your product.  In order to get this number, an organization must first identify its product targets.  This identification must be consistent and comprehensive.  Having gray areas will only serve to dilute your market base number and your marketing strategies.

Total Knowledge Base(KB) – This measurement is based on the number of people or entities in your identified market base who are knowledgeable about your product.  In a rather simplified form, this number can be derived from the assumption that members of your identified market that aren’t using your product aren’t familiar with it.  As your organization evolves, it becomes easier to identify the effectiveness of your mind share marketing strategy, and that data can be used to better identify your targets.

Product vs. Brand - If your organization has multiple product offerings, this knowledge base should be confined to single products as brand recognition and product recognition are not the same. Mind share should be based on product.  Some products may be more popular than others, but you shouldn’t make the assumption that because someone is using one of your products they are aware of others you may carry.

Mind Share Penetration – This measurement is based on the previous two variables and is the product of your total knowledge base divided by your total market base.       Mind Share = KB/MB

I admit that this is a very simplified explanation of a much more complex process.  That being said, the importance of understanding your Mind Share and utilizing that information to create an executable action plan is the first major step to identifying your customer journey.