The model Buying Power Score
How the Buying Power Score works
Most marketing advice is opinion dressed as strategy.
The Buying Power Score is different. It measures how publicly ready a brand is to be remembered, found, trusted, and chosen.
It does not guess from one prompt. It does not grade taste. It does not use competitors to inflate or punish a score.
It reads public buying-power evidence across a fixed model: 2 Forces, 4 Blocks, 12 Areas, and 60 Signals.
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What about my brand?
#1 Two forms of availability
Marketing growth depends on two forms of availability.
A buyer can only choose you when two things are true.
01
They remember you.
Mental Availability
Your brand needs to show up in memory before the buyer is ready to buy. It needs to be seen, recognized, understood, and associated with the situations where demand begins.
02
They can act on you.
Physical / Purchase Availability
Your brand needs to be findable, clear, credible, and easy to buy from when the buyer starts looking.
The Buying Power Score measures both. Not as theory. As public evidence.
#2 The buyer path
The model has four buyer-path Blocks.
The score follows the way buying actually happens.
01
Seen
Do buyers encounter the brand before they are ready to buy?
Footprint
Reach
Agentic Visibility
02
Known
Does the brand have memory, recognition, authority, and a clear reason to choose?
Brand Strength
Authority
Positioning
03
Found
Can active buyers, search systems, and AI systems find and understand the brand?
Channel Strength
Findability
Agentic Preference
04
Bought
Can interested buyers understand, trust, and act with low friction?
User Experience
Conversion Strength
Proof
Together, these 12 Areas create the complete Buying Power picture.
#3 60 public Signals
The score is built from 60 public Signals.
Each Area contains five Signals. A Signal is the smallest scored unit in the model. It measures one specific piece of observable buying-power evidence.
Every Signal receives a score from 0 to 5.
whether the homepage claim is clear
whether the brand appears in unbranded AI category answers
whether official brand results dominate branded search
whether social and public channels show recent activity
whether proof is strong enough to reduce buyer risk
whether the path to contact, book, buy, or sign up is clear
Rollup
- The Signals roll up into Area scores.
- The Areas roll up into Blocks.
- The Blocks roll up into the two Forces.
- The two Forces create the total Buying Power Score.
#4 Public evidence
Every score is based on public evidence.
The model looks at the public surface buyers can see and machines can read.
What the model reads:
- the website
- landing pages
- search results
- social profiles
- public content
- reviews
- directories
- press and industry mentions
- video and audio surfaces
- public knowledge sources
- AI answers
- structured website data
- conversion paths
- proof pages
It does not measure:
- revenue
- customer satisfaction
- sales-team quality
- product quality
- market share
- internal marketing effort
Those things matter to growth, but they are outside this score.
#5 Fixed scoring standard
The scoring standard is fixed.
A score is not based on whether a competitor is better or worse. Competitors can help explain urgency and market context, but they do not change the objective score.
Each Signal is scored against a fixed standard:
Score 0
The required or fallback check found no qualifying evidence, or a mandatory gate failed.
Score 1
Evidence is extremely weak, access-limited, or would likely be missed, distrusted, or misunderstood by a buyer.
Score 2
Evidence exists, but it is thin, incomplete, indirect, weakly placed, or concentrated in one source.
Score 3
The Signal is functionally present. It meets the minimum viable standard, but it is not yet strong.
Score 4
There is strong evidence across relevant surfaces, with clear execution and only minor gaps.
Score 5
The Signal is complete or near-complete, high quality, well supported, and has no material limitations.
This is what makes the score useful: the same model, the same Signals, the same scoring logic, every time.
#6 Evidence and limits
Missing evidence is not always failure.
The model separates three things that are often mixed together:
What was found
Positive public evidence that supports the score.
What was not found
Checked absence, where the method looked and no qualifying evidence appeared.
What could not be verified
Method limits, access limits, thin data, or evidence that needs human review.
"We checked and found nothing" is different from "we could not verify it."
A weak public surface is different from a weak company.
A low-confidence score is different from a proven failure.
The model keeps those differences visible.
#7 AI as buying surface
AI is part of the buying environment, not a magic layer.
AI systems now influence how buyers discover, compare, and understand brands. That is why the model includes two specific AI-related Areas:
Agentic Visibility
Does the brand appear when AI systems answer unbranded category questions?
Agentic Preference
When a buyer researches the brand by name in AI, is the answer accurate, useful, and choice-supporting?
The model also checks whether public structured evidence helps machines understand the brand correctly. AI is not treated as a shortcut. It is treated as another buying surface that must be measured carefully.
#8 A map, not a grade
The output is a map, not a vanity grade.
A high score everywhere is not the goal. The goal is to know:
which parts of the buying path are strong
which gaps are blocking growth
which gaps are root causes, not symptoms
which scores are solid
which scores are capped or confidence-limited
what should be fixed first
The total score gives direction.
The Area scores show where the problem sits.
The Signal scores show what to fix.
#9 Better decisions
The model supports better marketing decisions.
The Buying Power Score does not replace judgment. It gives judgment a stronger base.
Founders, marketers, commercial leads, agencies, and leadership teams can use the same evidence instead of debating from taste, instinct, or whoever argues best.
Question
What is the next highest-leverage gap to close?
Sometimes the answer is:
positioning
findability
proof
conversion friction
too little public evidence for buyers and AI systems to understand the brand
#10 What it is not
What the score is not.
The Buying Power Score is not:
a revenue forecast
a customer satisfaction score
a replacement for private analytics
a creative-quality award
a sales-team assessment
a product-quality assessment
a market-share estimate
a competitor ranking
an agency pitch disguised as diagnosis
It is a public buying-power maturity score. It tells you how well the brand is publicly built to be remembered, found, trusted, and acted on.
#11 From score to action
From score to action.
Instant Crush uses the score to help companies make clearer marketing choices.
01
Discover
See the public Buying Power picture.
02
Diagnose
Find the Areas and Signals that are helping or holding back growth.
03
Direct
Turn the gaps into priorities, sequence, and decisions.
04
Do
Put the work into motion with your team, agency, freelancers, or partners.
The model does not exist to create another dashboard. It exists to make the next marketing decision harder to avoid and easier to defend.
NEXT YOUR BRAND
See the complete picture of your brand.
Get your score. We take it from there, all the way to growth.
