Share of wallet, share of attention
Share of Wallet is, very simply, your share of an existing customers total purchases in a domain you service. You can fiddle at the edges in the way you define the domain, but it remains that better servicing an existing customer to get a greater share of their wallet is almost always more productive than going hunting for a new customer.
Share of attention as a measure can be as simple or complicated as you like. Definitions vary widely, but usually include measures of aided and unaided brand awareness, and the awareness of a specific marketing activity amongst the target market of that activity.
Share of wallet is the measure to be applied at the bottom of the sales funnel, share of attention the measure at the top. It is unlikely that a marketer will ever get to have a share of wallet until there has been a share of attention established.
Share of wallet always has been, and still is, a simple measure of great power. Share of attention used to be pretty simple when the communication mediums were limited to the few TV and radio stations, magazines and newspapers people consumed, but has become remarkably more complicated since the fragmentation of media.
Attention is the thing that those with whom we wish to communicate allow us to have from them, it is a gift of their time and intellect, and we so often undervalue or even abuse it.
We have 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours working, that leaves 8 discretionary hours to be spent, broken up into social time family time, entertainment, and all the other things we do with our lives.
Gaining peoples attention amongst all the competition, the first and necessary task in a marketing program is a huge task, but the benefit delivered by digital media is the huge palette we now have where creativity, innovation and an intimate understanding of the market and customers inhabiting the market pays dividends.
