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Advertising on a budget -- Part 3: Frequency, frequency, frequency

Written by: Michele Pariza Wacek

Article Overview: Yes there is a way to spend $100 a month and get a ton of exposure in front of your target market. Here’s how one business did it.

Advertising on a budget -- Part 3: Frequency, frequency, frequency

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.)

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

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Related Forum Posts
New blog loading in Internet Explorer - Thanks for the feedback guys - I'll look into the Internet Explorer issue. I appreciate you bringing it up!! It's made in Blogger so I don't know why it wouldn't work properly. As for posting frequency. Quality is more important than quantity. I keep on top of a number of SEO and online business related blogs on a regular basis. Some of them post every day while others post less than a week. The ones who don't post as frequently stay in my rss reader because I know when they do post, it's going to be good stuff. The other recommendation I have for bloggers is to keep the posting frequency regular. If you post once a day, keep posting once a day. Don't let it drop for a couple of weeks and then come back to it. People get used to your blogging frequency and you don't want to turn them off.
Re: Should the TTC install guard doors for customer safety? - If I was in charge of the TTC, I would not go through with installing the guard doors because the cost does not justify the frequency of incidents. Moreover, the newly proposed safety measure would end up costing tax payers too much money.
Re: Email marketing strategy - [quote="cathleen":1how8x8i]Here are the some steps you need to take to develop an effective e-mail strategy: Identify qualitative goals. Analyze the current situation. Complete a competitive analysis. Define the target audience. Determine which types of e-mail meet your needs. Develop a content strategy and a frequency and send schedule. Design the e-mail template. Create quantitative goals. Compile budget and ROI (define) projections. Evaluate results and tweak the strategy accordingly[/quote:1how8x8i] Nice tips, Cathleen. Is this something you do professionally?
Importance of Blogging frequency - >>I have recently upped the frequency of my blogging to pretty much daily. Yes, I think blogging entries have to be done on a regular basis, or you'll lose readers. Three times a week is just enough, daily is better... But of course the entries must be something worth reading!
Re: iPhones - [quote="OmnivoreInk"]iPhone batteries don't last long enough though...[quote] I own an iPhone and I have no problem with the batteries. I am a pretty heavy Internet user and if I don't watch videos or listen too much music (which I don't), I recharge my iPhone every other day.... exactly the same frequency as my old blackberry pearl.


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