Attracting Your Ideal Customers Before They Even Know You Exist

Introduction

The customer journey is complex, with many stages leading to a purchase decision. While most companies focus their efforts on the later stages when customers actively evaluate solutions, one critical phase is often overlooked - the pre-awareness stage.

This earliest stage occurs long before customers realize their needs or search for solutions. It is when perceptions, impressions, and brand associations are shaped through indirect touchpoints. While customers are not yet aware of a specific need, this pre-awareness phase plants seeds that blossom into future opportunities.

Many companies fail to dedicate resources to pre-awareness activities. However, this stage is a crucial foundation for downstream success. Companies can positively influence the rest of the customer journey by making strategic investments to shape perceptions early. Those who ignore pre-awareness miss a vital chance to drive awareness, shape brand image, and stand out from the competition. As such, forward-thinking companies must prioritize pre-awareness and not overlook this hidden stage of the customer journey.

What is the Customer Journey?

The customer journey refers to the end-to-end customer experience with a company, product, or service from initial awareness to post-purchase [1]. It encompasses every touchpoint and interaction a customer has along their path to purchase and beyond.

The customer journey typically consists of several vital stages [2]:

• Awareness: The customer becomes aware of a company, product, or service. This includes initial discovery and interest.
• Consideration: The customer researches and evaluates options. They compare products, read reviews, and ask for recommendations.
• Purchase: The customer decides to make a purchase and completes the transaction.
• Retention: The goal is to turn new customers into repeat customers. Companies aim to build loyalty and ongoing engagement.
• Advocacy: Satisfied customers become brand advocates and promoters. They leave positive reviews, refer friends, etc.

Analyzing the customer journey allows companies to identify pain points and improvement opportunities at each stage. The goal is to smooth out friction and create seamless, positive experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.

[1]?https://www.gartner.com/en/marketing/glossary/customer-journey [2]?https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/customer-journey-map

Pre-Awareness Stage

The pre-awareness stage is the earliest part of the customer journey before a customer is even aware of your company or product. It's the phase where potential customers have a need or problem to solve but don't know yet that your offering could solve it.

Many companies overlook pre-awareness because it's challenging to attribute and measure. Unlike later stages, where you can see direct responses to campaigns and content, the impact of brand-building activities often shows up indirectly and further down the funnel. Pre-awareness work may not generate immediate sales, so it's easy to under-invest.

However, pre-awareness is a crucial foundation. It's when you plant seeds and shape perceptions before customers realize they want your product—neglecting means missing opportunities to get your brand and offerings in front of the right audiences early. When people become aware of their needs, you want your company to be already top-of-mind. Great pre-awareness work ensures you're primed for future success.

Importance of Pre-Awareness

The pre-awareness stage sets the foundation for future stages of the customer journey. It represents the first opportunity for a company to shape perceptions about its brand before potential customers are even aware of its existence. During this phase, companies can influence how their brand will be perceived once prospects become aware of it [1].

By building positive brand associations in the minds of potential customers early on, companies make it more likely that prospects will view the brand favorably when they enter the awareness stage. Things like corporate social responsibility efforts, thought leadership content and word-of-mouth advocacy can shape brand perceptions before direct marketing begins [2].

With no preconceived notions or biases, prospective minds are open to developing new perceptions during pre-awareness. It's a crucial chance for brands to nurture their reputation and establish themselves as a trusted industry leader. These early brand impressions often form the basis of awareness-stage opinions. That's why pre-awareness is so foundational to the rest of the buyer's journey.

[1]?https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556005/ [2]?https://www.verywellmind.com/preoperational-stage-of-cognitive-development-2795461

Pre-Awareness Activities

The pre-awareness stage is when potential customers don't know they have a need or problem that requires a solution. At this point, they aren't actively searching for solutions. However, companies can take proactive steps during pre-awareness to position themselves as thought leaders and build brand awareness.

Some key pre-awareness activities include:

• Thought leadership content: Creating and distributing educational content like blogs, ebooks, webinars, and videos allows companies to demonstrate expertise. This content should focus on trends, insights, and best practices rather than heavy product promotion. It raises brand visibility and establishes trust and credibility. For example, HubSpot recommends producing industry research reports in the pre-awareness stage [1].
• Community engagement: Actively participating in relevant social media groups, forums, and communities provides exposure to potential new customers. Companies can share insights, provide value, and build relationships before prospects know they need a solution.
• Targeted media outreach: Pitching reporters and journalists with story ideas related to industry trends and challenges positions your company as a go-to expert resource. Earning media placements raises brand awareness and authority in the pre-awareness stage.

[1]?https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-for-every-funnel-stage

Measuring Pre-Awareness Impact

Understanding the impact of pre-awareness activities requires measuring metrics before and after implementation. Two key ways to measure pre-awareness include:

Brand Awareness Surveys

Conducting brand awareness surveys before and after pre-awareness campaigns provides quantitative data on changes in awareness, familiarity, and perceptions. Surveying target demographics gives insights into brand recognition, association, and sentiment. Comparing results pre and post-campaign shows the impact on brand awareness and equity.

Social Listening

Monitoring social platforms for brand mentions provides qualitative insights into pre-awareness. Social listening reveals conversations, interests, and needs of target audiences before active marketing. Tracking brand sentiment, share of voice, and changes over time shows how pre-awareness shifts brand perception. Social data informs message testing and identifies opportunities to engage audiences.

Combining quantitative surveys and qualitative social listening provides a comprehensive view of the impact of pre-awareness. These metrics demonstrate how early-stage activities shape brand image and lay the groundwork for future sales. Pre-awareness is challenging to measure directly, but it is essential to map the customer journey.

Pre-Awareness Case Studies

Companies that have succeeded in the pre-awareness stage have implemented targeted strategies to reach potential new customers before they even know the need for the product or service. Some examples include:

• Slack invested heavily in thought leadership content and community building before officially launching their product. They shared valuable insights, best practices, and use cases around team communication and collaboration. This primed their audience and built interest long before awareness of Slack as a solution.
• HubSpot created an inbound marketing methodology and made all its educational materials freely available from the start. They positioned themselves as experts in a new field, attracting and nurturing leads well before HubSpot was a known brand name.
• Mailchimp sponsored relatable podcasts and videos aligned to their target audience but not explicitly about email marketing. This exposed potential customers to the brand in a subtle, value-adding way.
• Away created travel-focused content like podcasts and blogs to reach its ideal customers organically long before introducing luggage products. First, it built a community and understanding of customer pain points.
• Gymshark partnered with influencers and athletes on YouTube and Instagram to organically expose their brand to aspirational audiences. Years later, when people were ready to make fitness apparel purchases, Gymshark was at the top of their minds.

The key is to provide value and build relationships with potential future customers before they recognize they have a need. Successful pre-awareness outreach plants seeds early and nurtures leads over time.

Common Pre-Awareness Mistakes

Many companies make mistakes in the pre-awareness stage that hurt their ability to move prospects through the customer journey. Two of the most common pre-awareness mistakes are:

• Not investing enough in early-stage activities. Companies often focus too much on the later stages of awareness and consideration and don't dedicate enough budget and resources to pre-awareness. This leads to a weak top-of-funnel that struggles to generate new leads. As?this article?notes, companies should devote at least 20-30% of their marketing budget to pre-awareness activities to build a solid foundation.
• Not having unified brand messaging. Failing to align messaging across channels and campaigns creates confusion during the pre-awareness stage. As?this HubSpot thread?discusses, inconsistent messaging dilutes impact and makes it harder to break through the noise. Brands need a crystallized value proposition and core themes that permeate all pre-awareness touchpoints.

Best Practices

It's essential to start pre-awareness activities early to establish your brand and build trust with potential customers before they recognize a need that your product or service can fulfill. Focus on creating high-quality, valuable content that genuinely helps your audience rather than trying to maximize reach or frequency.

As?Outbrain?notes, "Pre-awareness content should focus less on conversions and more on relationship building." Provide helpful information and establish your expertise. This content may not drive immediate sales but lays the groundwork for future conversions.

According to?X, quality should be emphasized over quantity in pre-awareness content. Well-researched, in-depth content demonstrates your knowledge and commitment better than churning out many superficial articles. Take the time to create resources that truly add value for your audience.

Conclusion

The pre-awareness stage is a critical part of the customer journey that companies often overlook. However, focusing on pre-awareness activities can significantly impact brand awareness, consideration, and sales. As discussed, pre-awareness aims to make potential customers aware of the problem or need, not the solution (https://www.questionpro.com/blog/customer-awareness/).

Companies must invest time and resources into pre-awareness efforts like content marketing, SEO, and social media. Measuring activities through metrics like website traffic, conversions, and sales will demonstrate the value of pre-awareness. With thoughtful strategy and execution, brands can increase awareness and pave the path for future sales.

The key takeaway is that pre-awareness lays the foundation for brand consideration and preference. Ignoring this stage means missing opportunities to connect with potential customers early on. Companies who want to improve their customer acquisition and retention should prioritize pre-awareness as a critical part of their marketing strategy. The effort put into pre-awareness will ultimately pay off in the form of more sales and loyal customers.

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