Advertising on a budget - Part 3: Frequency, frequency,
frequency
by Michele Pariza Wacek
Published on this site: October 13th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
This is the third article of a three-part series. I'm illustrating
the marketing challenges of PrescottWeddings.com, a small
business.
If you don't remember anything else about marketing, remember
this: Frequency is king.
The more often you can get your name in front of your potential
and current customers, the more likely you will make a sale.
Depending on what study you look at, people need to see your
message anywhere from three to 27 times before they act upon
it.
And, if you want to brand your business, then you need to
get it in front of your customers as often as possible.
How do you think Ivory Soap, Campbell Soup and Tide all built
their brands so deeply into our minds? Through years and years
of repeatedly advertising. That's why those brands pop into
our head when we think about soap, soup or laundry detergent.
So if you want to build your brand, then you need to advertise
frequently.
There's another benefit to advertising frequently. It also
helps your current customers.
People like to know they made the right decision after they
purchased something. How much reassurance they need depends
on how much they spend, but everyone needs some confirmation
they made the right decision. Your advertising can help.
Studies have shown that people are more aware of car ads
after they purchased a car - specifically car ads of the model
they bought. And they're more likely to both believe and approve
of the message. Again, because they want to know they made
the right decision.
So there are many good reasons to advertise frequently. Does
that mean you have to spend a fortune? Not necessarily. There
are a few tricks you can use to get the frequency you need
at a low cost. (These are print tricks -- other advertising
outlets, such as radio and online, we'll talk about in future
issues.)
- Make your ad as small as possible. Small ads cost less.
See "Advertising on a Budget – Part 2: Thinking
Small" for more information on shrinking your ad.
- It's better to schedule your ads to run all at once than
spread them out. People will never remember when they don't
see your ad, only when they do. If they see your ad a lot
in one week, they're going to be under the impression you
advertise all the time because they won't remember Not seeing
your ad other weeks.
- Take advantage of any frequency programs your newspaper
offers. And definitely sign a contract - don't run ads under
the open rate.
Here's how it worked for PWC.
The newspaper had a program called "3 For Free."
If you ran an ad three days in a row, you got the next three
days for free (the paper was published six days a week).
We designed a tiny ad - a one by two inch ad - and we ran
it six days in a row. Then we skipped the next three weeks
and did the same thing again the next month.
After a year of doing this, PWC had people coming up to her
telling her they saw her ad "all the time." Business
owners wanted to advertise on PWC because they could see the
commitment PWC had to advertising. Brides and grooms were
visiting PWC on a regular basis because they were being "reminded"
monthly.
What did all this cost? About $100 a month.
But, a word of caution. It takes time to build a business
and a brand. It won't happen overnight. But it will happen,
especially if you remember to keep getting your name in front
of your customers and potential customers as often as you
possibly can.
Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting,
a writing, marketing and creativity agency. She offers two
free e-newsletters that help subscribers combine their creativity
with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to
become more successful at attracting new clients, selling
products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at
http://www.writingusa.com
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