Nowadays, have you noticed that the majority of other businesses are out there waving their arms and screaming, “Hey, don’t forget about us! We’re right here! HEY! WE’RE OVER HERE! WE'LL GIVE YOU 30% OFF THAT PRODUCT THIS WEEK!” once or twice a day?
What do you think people think when they see that type of behaviour? Are they bored with it? Do they pay attention? Should you copy them? Joining them on the dark-side? Well... no!
You could say that eventually those other businesses will get eaten alive because they are addicted to a quick fix sale to bump their numbers up. Scary, but true. Soon they will be offering 40%, 50% or 60% just to get the same type of result.
You could easily argue that, for your business, trying to get a listeners attention while they are doing that is going to be a very hard thing to do. It is a real dilemma.
But the situation is not hopeless... NO - instead you should advertise, but with more frequency.
'FREQUENCY' HERE WE GO!!!!
Back in the 1960s, a psychologist said that "in order to break through advertising clutter, you would need to achieve a frequency of three with consumers. In other words, a consumer would have to see or hear an ad at least three times before making a decision on whether to buy."
Now, sixty years later should we still be recommending a frequency of three? I don’t think so. Nowadays we are flooded with advertising messages. Just open your eyes and ears and you’ll realize that with increased advertising, sponsorships, and marketing clutter, perhaps more logically we should be recommending a frequency of at least six, maybe even eight.
The average person, is exposed to a minimum of 5,000 and a maximum of 10,000 commercial impressions EVERY SINGLE DAY!
That estimate is up substantially from the early 1990s when researchers had estimated the number at a mere 2,500 per day.
This jump is significant, and as you can imagine, global access to the Internet, high-speed connections, text messaging, spam, smart phones, more TV channels, streaming of tv, movies, podcasts, music, increased media sponsorships, print media, websites and apps, and - arghhh there's just too much media clutter.
So to compete against all of that noise - you need to play your commercial more times than anyone else - no matter what your message is - from branding ads which traditionally ran 3 times a day - increase them to double that - call to action ads - increase it from 3 times a day to triple that.
Stop copying and start getting in front of the competition - be a rebel - and you'll soon leave the dark side behind.
Until next time - may the force be with you!
