Creating and building awareness of a specific product, company, candidate or cause is sometimes thought of as a problem to be solved with advertising, more complex marketing efforts or a series of postings and activities across social media.

The more effective way to start building awareness is by asking good questions of the people you want to make aware.

Awareness research is developed and organized differently than market research.  The goal of awareness campaigns is different. Market research is aimed at finding an audience for a product or service, which makes that type of research focused on market needs. Market research gathers information about markets (regions, economic segments, demographic groups, etc.) as customers. Note that this is really different from marketing research that is concerned specifically about marketing processes, media channels and reaching defined audiences/markets. Market research is concerned specifically with identifying and defining markets.

Market research is a key factor to get advantage over competitors because it provides important information to identify and analyze the market membership, identity, needs, market size and the reach of your competition.

Awareness research is the systematic gathering and interpretation of information about the knowledge of individuals or organizations using analytical methods and techniques of the applied social sciences. If your goal is to put your name, idea or cause in the front of people bombarded for their attention in a complex world you need to know who you are reaching and what they know and don’t know about you.

You aren’t selling soap, you’re trying to change people’s minds.