Physical availability: meaning & tips

Introduction

Successful brands are not only well-known, they are especially easy to find at the time consumers want to buy. This principle is called Physical Availability, a powerful concept that makes the difference between a popular brand and a winning brand. After all, what good are thousands of eager consumers who can't find your product when it counts? Brands that strategically increase their physical availability not only realize higher sales, but also build lasting brand preference. Discover how smart distribution and visibility can help you leave your competition behind and make customers choose your brand easier and more often.

Definition physical availability

Physical availability, or physical availability, according to Byron Sharp, is the degree to which a brand is physically findable and readily available to consumers at the time they are considering a purchase. It explicitly refers to how widely and prominently a brand is offered through all relevant sales channels, both physical (stores, restaurants, etc.) and online (Web stores, search engines).

According to Sharp, brand growth depends on two crucial pillars: mental availability (top-of-mind awareness) and physical availability (findability and ease of purchase). While mental availability ensures that people think of your brand, physical availability ensures that they can actually buy your brand when that thought translates into action.

So by strategically improving your physical availability, you directly increase sales and strengthen your market position simply because you are more easily accessible to consumers at the time of purchase.

Physical availability: Heineken's secret.

A strong practical example of physical availability comes from beer brand Heineken. Early on, Alfred Heineken understood that the success of a brand is not only about strong advertising, but at least as much about distribution and visibility. He wanted Heineken to not only be known, but literally available everywhere. By consistently investing in the distribution network, presence in stores and on-trade, and striking visibility at points of sale, Heineken became one of the best available beer brands worldwide.

Here's how physical availability works: Heineken made sure its brand was prominently and easily available on virtually every conceivable sales channel, making it effortless for consumers to buy the brand whenever they wanted, thus converting brand preference into actual sales.

Presence, Prominence and Relevance

According to Byron Sharp (2010), effective physical availability relies on three essential pillars:

1. Presence.

Presence refers to how widely distributed your brand is across relevant sales channels. These include stores, hospitality, online shops, online search results, and social media. The greater your presence within relevant channels, the more likely consumers will actually be able to buy your brand at the time of need.

2. Prominence.

Prominence is about how prominent and easy to find your brand is within a sales channel. It makes a difference whether your products are displayed prominently at eye level, conspicuously in aisles or immediately visible online thanks to good SEO and advertising. Prominent visibility encourages impulse purchases and reinforces spontaneous preference.

3. Relevance.

Relevance means that your assortment matches what consumers want, when they want it. That means offering the right product, variant, packaging and price at the right time and place. Relevance ensures that potential customers not only see your brand, but are immediately convinced that this brand is the right choice.

By consistently paying attention to these three pillars, you optimize physical availability and ensure a strong, direct translation of brand awareness into actual purchases.

Tips to increase physical availability

Want to make your brand more accessible and visible to customers? Use these five practical tips to see quick results:

1. Broaden your distribution

Make sure your brand is present in as many relevant sales channels as possible, both offline and online. Think of additional web shops, local stores, specialized outlets or marketplaces such as Amazon or Bol.com.

2. Optimize visibility (Prominence).

Increase your visibility in stores through eye-catching displays, eye-level shelf positions, POS materials, or temporary promotions. Online, increase your prominence with good SEO, paid search advertising (SEA), and eye-catching ads on social media.

3. Match your assortment to customer needs (Relevance).

Regularly analyze which product variants, packaging and pricing are best suited to your target audience. Make sure your offerings remain constantly aligned with what customers really want to buy.

4. Work closely with sales channels

Invest in strong relationships with key retailers or online sales platforms. Good partnerships can provide better shelf space, more eye-catching promotions and stronger recommendations to customers.

5. Leverage data and feedback

Use sales data, search behavior and customer feedback to target assortment, inventory management and visibility. This way you make sure you always offer exactly what the customer is looking for and avoid waste.

Balance between physical and mental availability

While physical availability is essential, increasing it can require significant investment. Therefore, it is important to think carefully about where you are deploying resources. According to Sharp (2010), brands achieve optimal growth when there is a balance between investment in physical availability (findability and ease of purchase) and mental availability (brand recognition and preference).

Smaller or new brands often must first build mental availability to create demand. Then they must increase physical availability to actually convert that demand into sales. Established brands that are already sufficiently well-known, on the other hand, can grow at an accelerated rate by expanding their physical availability. Finding the right balance between the two forms of availability ultimately determines how effectively your marketing budgets are deployed.

Conclusion

Physical availability is an essential part of any successful marketing strategy. By ensuring that your brand is widely, prominently visible and relevant to customers at the time they want to buy, you effectively convert brand awareness into actual sales.

Want help growing your business from a marketing agency that understands physical availability? Then contact us with no obligation.

We close with a tweet from Byron Sharp himself.

Search advertising (which is huge chunk of what is called "digital") isn't like advertising at all. It's physical availability.

- Byron Sharp (@ProfByron) April 3, 2018

Resources

Sharp, B. (2010). How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know. Oxford University Press.