Think about the last time you went to the grocery store to buy coffee. Gazing upon a wall of coffee brands, you might weigh bags with boutiquey, artistic labels against the classic labels you grew up with. Or maybe you compare the descriptions of Sumatran and Ethiopian coffee-tasting notes. Either way, the question is the same: Which coffee should I buy?
Oftentimes, how we answer this question is tied to brand salience. Companies with high brand salience are more likely to make it onto consumers’ shortlists before they make a purchase decision.
Learn more about brand salience, ways to measure it, and how to increase brand salience for your ecommerce business.
What is brand salience?
Brand salience is a measure of how easily potential customers can recognize and recall your brand when they’re considering a purchase. How a brand becomes top of mind is related to the number and quality of memory structures—a kind of mental roadmap—a person associates with a brand. The more memory structures a brand creates, the higher the emotional connection between the person and the brand, and the higher the brand salience.
High brand salience means your brand is easy for people to recall and consider in a buying situation because of past positive customer experiences, effective marketing campaigns, and strong brand storytelling. Low brand salience means people may not know your brand exists, what it sells, or how it’s meant to stand out in the competitive landscape.
Why is brand salience important for ecommerce?
Brand salience is especially important for ecommerce brands that want recognition in the most competitive landscape of all: the internet. For a customer in a brick-and-mortar store, options are limited by what the store stocks; the shopper must make a separate trip to another store to expand their choices. For online shoppers, an alternative is only a click away. As you improve brand salience, you’re simultaneously working to increase customer loyalty and help customers think of your brand over competitors.
Brand salience vs. brand awareness: What’s the difference?
Brand awareness is the foundation of brand salience; you can’t build brand salience without brand awareness. Here’s how they differ and complement each other:
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Brand awareness. Brand awareness is when customers know your brand exists. You need consumers to be aware of your brand before it can become salient to them.
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Brand salience. Brand salience goes a step further. Customers know your brand exists and consider it when making purchasing decisions. It’s about consumers being aware of your brand at the crucial purchasing stage of the sales funnel.
The word “salient” is derived from the Latin verb salire, or “to leap.” When we describe things as salient today, we mean that they stand or “leap” out from their surroundings. This is precisely the goal of brand salience—to stand apart from all the other brands one might be aware of.
Methods for measuring brand salience
There isn’t a single mathematical metric to measure brand salience, but certain methods can help you gauge the success of your marketing efforts:
Brand recognition and awareness data
Brand recognition and awareness are important factors for measuring brand salience. For example, when measuring awareness, 61% of US survey respondents reported knowing of the brand Kylie Cosmetics. When respondents saw both the brand’s logo and name, they knew what the brand sold and what it stood for. That high brand awareness score suggests Kylie Cosmetics has established overall brand visibility. If you’re a small brand, you can still conduct your own research via email surveys or monitoring social media to learn whether your brand strategy is yielding increased brand awareness.
Customer focus groups
Focus groups can help to determine customers’ depth of memory and emotional connection with your brand. A focus group is a qualitative research method, bringing together a small, carefully selected group of individuals to discuss a specific topic, product, service, or marketing campaign. You can learn what consumers feel when they think of your brand or your competitors. You can also understand how and why they’re connected with your brand—from advertising campaigns to brand colors to customer service experiences.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer satisfaction metric based on a standardized question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend?” Because NPS is uniform across brands, it’s a useful metric for comparing your brand with your competitors. Willingness to recommend your company shows the strength of their emotional commitment to your brand, products, or services.
5 tips for increasing brand salience
- Start with brand awareness
- Develop a memorable brand image
- Tell your authentic brand story
- Seed your product
- Use relevant marketing channels
Building brand salience is an incremental process and takes time. When you think about household names like Coca-Cola, Band-Aid, and Levi’s, remember, they’ve been consistently messaging across several marketing channels for decades. So, while it’s not impossible to influence brand salience, it does take sustained effort. Here’s how to go about it:
1. Start with brand awareness
Brand awareness marketing campaigns primarily focus on introducing your brand to more people. Effective campaigns can also increase your brand’s salience by showing your target audience that your brand can meet their needs. Take popular tinned fish brand Fishwife as an example. Its co-founder, Becca Millstein, says the company focused on building enthusiastic brand awareness among a small group of people before gradually building on that community.
“It’s important to have a grassroots mindset at every point,” Becca says in an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “You’re not going to go from zero to 60 in the first couple of weeks. But you can have everyone in your life—your closest friends, your family, your cousins—share in their networks.”
Becca encourages people to think of building their brand outward into concentric circles.
“Start in your circle by getting people excited about it, posting about it, and sharing it with friends,” she says. “If the product is novel and the brand is great and the product is good, it will continue to grow from there.”
When your brand is still small, focus on honing your unique selling proposition and ideal customer. Spend time developing an SEO strategy to make it easier for people to discover you, and be sure to directly engage with your customers online.
2. Develop a memorable brand image
A memorable brand image combined with distinctive brand assets—such as a compelling logo and slogan—can help you stand out from competitors and be easier to spot in a sea of similar products. A strong brand image is easy to identify, memorable, and makes an emotional connection with your customers over time.
To launch Fishwife, Becca sought a designer who could deliver on her unique vision to make old-fashioned food like tinned fish bright, playful, and fun to see on a shelf.
“I looked at a bunch of illustrators on Instagram and surveyed friends and family to see who they felt most drawn to,” she says.
She also created an inspiration board to keep her designer on track.
“The board had a very narrow focus, which I would encourage people to strive toward,” she says.
3. Tell your authentic brand story
Brand storytelling uses narrative to solidify your brand values and personality with your customers. Chances are you started your ecommerce brand to solve a specific need you saw in the marketplace. Sharing that journey is one way to show your brand’s authenticity. Powerful brand stories can have a real emotional impact on potential customers and starts to cement your brand in their memories.
Fishwife does this by highlighting the fact it's a female-founded brand with a high priority on quality. The brand story appears everywhere the brand shares its message—from its social posts to its website.
4. Seed your product
To get brand exposure, Becca decided to give Fishwife products to food influencers.
“Product seeding has immeasurable value if you are seeding to the right folks in the right communities,” she says. “There are hundreds of thousands of people that are invested in just the foodie community, whether they have 5,000 followers or one million followers. There’s just so much value in getting your product into the hands of folks that have influence.”
If you have the funds and a product people can demonstrate online, consider starting an influencer gifting program or a user-generated content (UGC) campaign. When chosen well, influencers can offer a much shorter path to brand salience than a traditional commercial or billboard. After all, half of shoppers and the majority of Gen Z consumers say they tend to choose products recommended by influencers.
5. Use relevant marketing channels
Finally, share your brand message via the marketing channels your target audience interacts with the most to get your brand seen by the right people. Maintaining consistency will be key once you land on a combination of channels, the most popular of which include the following:
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Social media platforms. Social media marketing on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and X is a powerful way to get your brand in front of a targeted audience.
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Paid ads. TV commercials are expensive, but paid advertising on social media, search results pages, and other digital channels can suit budgets large and small.
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Email. Email campaigns can help your customers get to know you better, and you can tailor communications to different audience segments.
Tailor your message to the preferred format on each channel—clip a 10-minute brand video on YouTube into a short, informal video for TikTok, for example—so it has the best chance of resonating with your target audience.
Brand salience FAQ
What is brand salience vs. brand image?
Brand salience means your brand stands out when potential customers are looking to make a purchase. Brand image is the collective impression consumers have about your company, product, or service.
What is brand salience with an example?
Brand salience is how much your brand comes to mind when customers are making an actual purchasing decision. For example, if a person is going to shop online for a new duvet cover, they could start that search by looking for duvets in general, or by remembering a particular bedding brand such as Brooklinen. If a large audience thinks of Brooklinen when shopping for bedding, the brand has brand salience.
What is the brand salience model?
The brand salience model begins with building a strong, consistent brand identity. Set your brand apart by using consistent positive messages to establish emotional connections with your customers.
