Five Levels of Awareness
Match each message to what the prospect already understands
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 99%
The Five Levels of Awareness model maps the customer journey as a progression in understanding. An unaware prospect does not recognize a problem; a problem-aware prospect recognizes pain but not possible solutions; a solution-aware prospect knows categories of remedies; a product-aware prospect knows specific products; and a most-aware prospect is close to choosing. Effective copy starts at the audience’s actual level and moves them toward the next one. Failure occurs when marketers imitate established-brand advertising or lead with features for people who have not yet connected their pain to a solution. Ryan Deiss highlights problem-aware audiences as an attractive blue ocean because they experience the need but have not entered expensive, obvious category searches.
Origin
Ryan Deiss attributed the awareness model to Eugene Schwartz and Breakthrough Advertising, then applied it to modern acquisition strategy. Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain.
Core principles
- 01Marketing moves prospects through successive states of awareness
- 02A message fails when it assumes knowledge the audience does not have
- 03Problem-aware audiences offer a less crowded acquisition opportunity
- 04Later-stage advertising can be obvious and expensive
- 05Copy should begin at the prospect’s current understanding
How to run it
- 1
Identify unaware prospects
Determine whether the audience has yet to recognize that a meaningful problem exists.
Pro tip Use educational or diagnostic content rather than product comparisons.
Watch out Product claims will feel irrelevant when no need is perceived.
- 2
Address problem awareness
Name the recognized pain in the prospect’s own language and show why it matters.
Pro tip This stage can offer a large, less-contested audience.
Watch out Do not assume the prospect already knows what type of solution to seek.
- 3
Build solution awareness
Explain the available approaches and the mechanism by which the problem can be solved.
Watch out Generic category keywords may be obvious, competitive, and expensive.
- 4
Develop product awareness
Introduce the relevant products and show how their differences map to the buyer’s criteria.
Pro tip Use proof and differentiation rather than repeating category education.
- 5
Serve the most aware
Help near-ready buyers make a final choice with a clear offer, reassurance, and action.
Pro tip Reduce friction and answer remaining decision questions.
Watch out Do not burden a ready buyer with an unnecessarily long re-education sequence.
- 6
Connect the journey
Ensure each message advances the prospect from the current awareness state to the next logical state.
Pro tip Map content and offers to awareness transitions rather than channel labels alone.
Watch out Skipping stages can make accurate claims arrive before the audience is ready to value them.
In the wild
A CRM company can target “CRM” or “marketing automation,” but those obvious solution-aware keywords are expensive. It can instead address a problem experienced before the buyer begins searching for CRM software, then educate the prospect toward the category and product.
→ The company reaches a less-contested audience earlier in the buying journey.
Common mistakes
Copying established-brand advertising
Large brands can speak to product-aware or most-aware audiences that a newer company has not yet earned.
Assuming complete knowledge
Feature-heavy messaging fails when prospects have not connected their problem to the solution category.
Remaining too vague
Broad aspirational language may fail to identify either the problem or the product, leaving prospects at the same awareness level.
Is it for you?
Best for
Marketers designing campaigns, funnels, and landing pages for audiences at different stages of market understanding.
Not ideal for
Teams that cannot distinguish among audience segments or have no evidence about what prospects already know.
From the transcript
“the customer journey is just walking people through the levels of awareness.”
“So unaware, problem aware, solution aware, product aware, most aware.”
“The big open area, the big blue ocean is to go problem aware.”
From the episode
Revealing the 2024 Marketing Strategy of a $200M Founder