Advertising on a budget -- Part 3: you need the Frequency, frequency, frequency
This is the third article in a three-part series. I am 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 show your name to your current and potential customers, the more likely you are to make a sale.
Depending on the study you look at, people need to see your message between three and 27 times before acting on it.
And, if you want to brand your business, you need to introduce it to your customers as often as possible.
How do you think Ivory Soap, Campbell Soup, and Tide built their brands so deeply in our minds? Through years and years of repeated advertising. That's why those brands come to mind when we think of soap, soup, or laundry detergent.
So if you want to build your brand, you have to advertise frequently.
There is another benefit of advertising frequently. It also helps your current clients.
People like to know that they made the right decision after buying something. How much security they need depends on how much they spend, but everyone needs confirmation that they made the right decision. Your advertising can help.
Studies have shown that people are more aware of car advertisements after purchasing a car, specifically advertisements for cars of the model they purchased. And they are more likely to believe and approve of the message. Again, because they want to know that 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 gimmicks in print, other advertising media, like radio, and online, which we'll talk about in future issues.)
1. Make your ad as small as possible. Small ads cost less. See "Advertising on a budget - Part 2: Think small" for more information on how to reduce your ad.
2. Better to schedule your ads to run all at once than to distribute them. 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 will get the impression that you advertise all the time because they won't remember NOT seeing your ad in other weeks.
3. Take advantage of the frequency programs that your newspaper offers. And definitely sign a contract, do not post ads below the open rate.
Here's how it worked for PWC.
The newspaper had a program called "3 Free". If you ran an ad three days in a row, the next three days were free (the article ran six days a week).
We designed a tiny ad, one by two inches, and ran it six days in a row. Then we skipped the next three weeks and did the same thing again the following month.
After a year of doing this, PWC had people come up to her and say they see her ad "all the time." Business owners wanted to advertise on PWC because they could see PWC's commitment to advertising. Brides and grooms visited PWC regularly because they were "reminded" on a monthly basis.
How much did all this cost? Around $ 100 a month.
But a word of warning. 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 making your name known to your prospects and clients as often as possible.
