A couple of years ago, the company I worked for prohibited me from telling you what I am about to share.  (I decided not to work for that company after a few months.)

I started in the advertising side of radio in 1986 in Detroit.  Some of you weren’t even born yet.  That’s okay.  The truth of what I’m going to share with you is timeless.  It’s not based on gimmicks, or any particular technology.  It is based on human behavior.  I’ve learned it from others over the years and will continue to preach this to anyone who wants to know the best way to spend their marketing money.

Let’s start with a question:

Would you rather convince 100 people 1% to buy something?

or

Would you rather convince 1 person 100% to buy something?

If you are selling a house, you can only sell it one time, right?  It doesn’t matter if you have 100 people who are a little bit interested, you just need 1 person who is 100% interested, right?

Reach & Frequency are terms that media salespeople will use to try and convince you that you should spread your advertising dollars out among several medias.  “Buy 3 or 4 radio and tv stations, a few billboards and some newspaper ads too”.

That’s great if you have really deep pockets, but it can be a disaster if your funds are limited.  Spreading your dollars all over the place will reach lots of people but the danger is the frequency is too low.  Each person who sees or hears your ad needs to be exposed to your message multiple times to create a memorable impression.

Focus first on frequency.  Even if you can only afford to reach a smaller pool of people, it’s better to convince them to do business with you than to reach lots and lots of people who don’t remember who you are.

Let’s put this another way:

If you went on 100 dates with 100 different people the odds are pretty slim you’d end up married.

However, if you went on 100 dates with 1 person, odds are that the two of you would be tying the knot.

Questions?  Ask away.