Mental availability: the metric your marketing strategy is missing
You can’t walk into a marketing meeting without someone pulling up the dashboard. Impressions are up. Click-throughs holding steady. Cost per lead trending downward. It all looks good. But then comes the silence no spreadsheet or graph can fill: when the buyer’s ready to act, will they think of us?
Because that’s the real question. Not did they see us? But will they recall us when it counts?
Measuring results shouldn’t stop at visibility. And what does awareness mean in your own words? In the noise of today’s market, reach is cheap. It’s mental availability that’s scarce. That invisible but crucial muscle memory where your brand or product surfaces at the exact moment of need.
That’s where the real battle is fought.
Being remembered beats being known
Mental availability isn’t a buzzword. It’s a concept backed by years of research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, and championed by thinkers like Byron Sharp. But in practice, it’s common sense. When you need to send a package overnight, you don’t Google “courier options.” You say, “Let’s use X.” That reflex is mental availability.
The tricky part? People don’t walk around thinking about your brand. They think about their problems. So if your brand wants a seat at the table, it needs to be part of the mental landscape buyers already navigate. Not just visible, but memorable. Not just correct, but easy to recall.
That’s not something you earn through a single campaign. It’s something you build over time. With consistency, creativity, and a deep understanding of the buyer’s context. It’s about showing up often enough, and distinctively enough, that your brand becomes the answer before the question is even fully formed.
Why most brands forget to be memorable
It’s understandable. Whether you’re selling high-value services or shelf-ready products, it’s tempting to focus on what you can track. In the service economy, we measure leads, proposals, pipeline velocity. In FMCG, it’s all about sales uplift, share of shelf, promo ROI. Mental availability doesn’t fit neatly into those dashboards — at least not right away. It takes a long view in a world hooked on instant feedback.
But here’s what happens when you don’t invest in it. A business leader starts searching for a new partner, and your agency doesn’t come to mind. Not because your work wasn’t strong, but because your name wasn’t top-of-mind. Or someone walks through the supermarket, glances at the dairy aisle, and picks a competitor’s yoghurt. Not because it tasted better, but because it was easier to recall in that split second of decision.
That’s not a failure of quality. It’s a failure of presence.
Building mental availability starts now
Think about your last five campaigns. Were they distinctive? Were they recognisable across formats and platforms? Would someone scrolling at speed know, without thinking, that it was you?
Mental availability lives in the repetition of truth, not the reinvention of the wheel. It’s forged through every email, every social ad, every presentation deck that reinforces who you are and what you stand for.
The brands that win don’t necessarily scream the loudest. But they reside in memory. They’re the ones buyers recall in the quiet moment when the shortlist is written before the RFP, before the vendor comparison, before your analytics tool registers anything at all.
The invisible ROI
The irony? The brands with the highest mental availability often spend less per conversion over time. Why? Because when people remember you, they search your name. They click your links. They say yes faster. Performance marketing becomes easier when you’ve done the brand work upfront.
So next time someone asks what your marketing strategy is missing, don’t show them another funnel slide. Ask instead: who thinks of us and when?
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