A Comprehensive Guide to Mindshare and Market Share

“People don’t want to be sold they want to be inspired”

 - Beth Comstock, General Electric CMO

As managing director, vice president, chief operating officer, chief executive, president and CEO, mindshare and market share are probably some of your top goals. Here is a comprehensive guide for you (and your employees) with all the basics of mindshare and market share.

This guide will give you a competitive advantage so you can leverage marketing, media, and campaigns to increase your mindshare and market share.

What is Mindshare?

“Before you can have a share of the market, you must have a share of mind.” 

- Linda S. Wolf, CEO of Leo Burnett Worldwide 

Mindshare relates to consumer awareness of a product or company. Google, Band-Aid, Chapstick, Asprin, and Velcro are some of the best examples of the power of mindshare. A fairly new marketing term, it highlights the goal of advertisers and marketers: to create buzz and brand recognition around a product, idea, or service. To “mindshare” your business, create such popularity behind your brand, that you are the first to come to mind for consumers. The most successful companies have pioneered a product or service and have gained recognition for it. They are known as the best solution and for many consumers, the only solution to their problem. 

Brand equity is the commercial value of the brand name, which is closely related to the premise of mindshare. Brand equity is the qualitative version of mindshare. It’s the value of the brand name. Mindshare is capturing the minds of your audience. When your customers think of your brand name first, that’s mindshare. Most consumers are not loyal to brands like they used to be. Because of this, marketers are forced to work harder against their competitors. Successful mindshare increases customer loyalty and sales. Mindshare is about your relationship with your customers. The more connected to you they feel, the higher brand resonance you will have, and thus better mindshare. Linda Wolf calls this “brand bond”, the heart of your relationship with your customers.

What is Market share?

Market share is the portion a company controls of a market. The goal of most brands is to be a market leader, the company selling the largest quantity of a particular type of product. Market leaders often have to expand the market, to allow room for it to grow. Market share is usually quantifiable and measurable and is the financial concrete makeup of mindshare. This measures how well your company is performing competitively with other brands. The more you can control a market segment, the more advantage you have with controlling the decisions of consumers. 

Market share is concrete and will translate to a percent of the market. This is helpful because it allows brands to set goals that are measurable. 

To read more about profitability and market share, read this article. 

How Mindshare and Marketshare are Different

Mindshare and Marketshare are closely related but are not the same thing. You can look at mindshare as the means of achieving a high market share, and becoming a market leader. Though you may set goals to achieve a higher market share percentage, your ultimate objective should be to increase your overall mindshare. Market share can rise and fall with the new competition and technological advancements. However, if you achieve excellent mindshare as a brand, you will have better long term success, and usually, remain at the top, if you continuously adapt and innovate. Market share is about the concrete numbers and percentages you hold as a brand, rather than the connection you have with your customers or clients. Though they are different, they work side by side. If you prioritize mindshare in your marketing plan, you will see sales increase, thus improving your market share.

How To Increase Your Mindshare & Marketshare Growth

If you are trying to improve mindshare for your brand, your strategy should include brand experience, customer experience, brand promise, and brand personality. All of these strengthen the emotional connection you have with your customers. Whether it be from a psychological/emotional perspective, or a design/user experience perspective, your relationship with your customers will help your brand fail or succeed. 

To succeed, you need to make sure you are the go-to brand. Mindshare technologies like MaxMindshare can help you analyze your mindshare. This can help achieve objectives and work towards the goal of increasing your market share percentage and increasing sales and revenue. MaxMindshare uses data to analyze the links between market share and mindshare. 

To increase your market share, focus on staying relevant and being innovative. You should work to be the vanguard in your industry, developing new ideas and products that are innovative and fresh. Stay connected to your customers through social media and be engaging. This will improve your brand experience and bring in more customers.

Key Takeaways

CEO Linda S. Wolf says that top brands have a “special stature” about them and that successful brands create “brand belief”. These brands are considered about premiums with their customers. They are respected and known. They have a brilliant sales force and production capacity. Mindshare is a global idea that infiltrates different regions by capturing the mind of customers. To reiterate, great examples of mindshare are: Aspirin, Yo-Yo, Taser, Zamboni, Popsicle, Thermos, Post-It, and Q-Tips. These examples have attached their name to an idea/product and have changed the way we think about their industry. Fifty years ago, we wouldn’t have known what it means to “Google it” but now Google is a noun and a verb, and has revolutionized the internet--a $167.7 billion dollar company. There are so many opportunities for companies to mindshare new ideas and products. Once a brand does this successfully, its growth rate is exponential. Brands that do this capture their target market, and have sky-high revenue.