Reach and frequency are terms generally used when planning advertising campaigns. However, the concept of reach and frequency applies to any promotional activity you undertake: direct mail, direct selling, and even networking.
Reach is the number of people you touch with your marketing message or the number of people that are exposed to your message. Frequency is the number of times you touch each person with your message.
In a world of unlimited resources you would obviously maximize both reach and frequency. However, since most of us live in the world of limited resources we must often make decisions to sacrifice reach for frequency or vice versa.
For example, an air conditioning repair service who has decided to do a direct mail piece has to decide whether to mail the entire Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex once or to mail a quarter of the Metroplex four times. An attorney who receives many of her clients through networking may have to decide whether to attend one weekly networking meeting or four different monthly meetings.
When faced with decisions of reach vs. frequency remember this rule of thumb:
Reach without Frequency = Wasted Money
Marketing is the process of building a business relationship with potential customers. Have you ever established a lifelong friendship with someone you had contact with only once? Probably not. Generally friendships (and all relationships for that matter) grow as a result of frequent contact over time. Even when the potential to form a great friendship is there at the first encounter, it is unlikely it will grow without nurturing.
Seth Godin in his book Permission Marketing uses an analogy of seeds and water to demonstrate the importance of assuring adequate frequency in your promotional campaigns. If you were given 100 seeds with enough water to water each seed once would you plant all 100 seeds and water each one once or would you be more successful if you planted 25 seeds and used all of the water on those 25 seeds? While intuitively and even conceptually we understand the importance of frequency to successful promotional and sales campaigns, somehow when it comes to actually implementing the campaign, we opt to sacrifice frequency for reach. And then we complain about the ineffectiveness of our promotional efforts. Undoubtedly one of the biggest wastes of marketing dollars is promotional activities that are implemented without adequate frequency.
When faced with the decision of mailing one direct mail piece to 10,000 people or mailing to 2,500 people four times think about the fate of those 100 seeds you can water only once. Unless you have water rights and can obtain additional water, opt for less reach and more frequency. The owner of a mid-size business in a regional market wrote in with this question about direct mail strategy for introducing a new product:
“If you had a choice of mailing to several communities one time (possibly twice) as opposed to mailing to a few communities two (maybe three or four) times, what would you recommend?”
In all but a few situations, our answer to this type of question is going to be “go with frequency.” It’s essential that your mailer be there during the critical time frame in which the customer is interested in your product. And you don’t know when that will be.
For instance, you may have the best deal on dishwashers in the state, but your offer will barely register as people sort their mail…until the month comes when they notice their old machine is starting to leak, or they’re getting ready to sit down with their contractor and spec out the kitchen remodel. If you’ve been mailing on a steady basis, your offer will likely get their consideration. If you’ve mailed only once, they’ve probably forgotten about it.
Of course while frequency is a key, it won’t do you any good to mail frequently to the wrong lists or to the wrong list segments. That’s where mail list testing comes in.
You might consider doing an initial, broad mailing to several list segments and carefully tracking response to that initial mailing. (Make sure your employees know to ask customers who call or come in to your store how they heard about the new product.) If particular segments of the initial mailing perform better than others, and your mailing budget is limited, we’d recommend following up with a program of frequent mailings to those top-performing segments rather than only one additional mailing to the broader list.
Segmenting and testing lists is an art, and much of it is influenced by how well you — and your list broker — know the lists you are using. It’s important to have direct marketing consultants who pride themselves in helping clients tailor the right lists to find the right buyers.
Original Article: Marigold Technologies’ (http://www.marigoldtech.com) industry-specific expertise and competitive insight transform marketing lists from a simple commodity into high-value strategic assets in the battle for market share. Direct Marketing Blog – http://www.marigoldtech.com/blog/ Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ian_Mackie