03/ 22/ 2002
A cardinal rule of thumb in advertising is: potential customers usually need to see the name of a product seven times or more before they're motivated enough to even think about making a purchase. In today's Workshop, Jeffrey Moses shows a few ways to place your name before customers, without completely exhausting your ad budget.
The Seven Times Factor is an advertising fact of life for three reasons. First, today there is tremendous competition for people's attention due to the plethora of ads in all media. Second, people rarely go out of their way to look into something new until they are extremely motivated to do so. Finally, repetition is a proven technique for learning. Students use it, as do advertisers. Just think of the way pop music is sold. Radio stations and MTV play a song repeatedly until the teen market begins purchasing. Notice also the "hook" of pop songs, which is a catchy chorus repeated over and over. This hook is almost always the actual name of the song (or album), making it easy for buyers to remember what to ask for at the music store.
For these reasons, it's important that all your ads not only be as eye-catching as possible -- your ads need to be repeated frequently so that potential customers will begin to take mental note of them. There are specific ways to assure this frequency for each type of media:
1. Newspapers. Take advantage of frequency rates whenever possible. At all costs avoid putting all your ad dollars into one or two large ads. Numerous smaller ads, spread out over time, are almost always more effective. Some businesses have found success scattering a number of small ads throughout a newspaper, rather than placing one large ad.
2. Radio. Again, take advantage of frequency rates. If you can't afford to purchase a package that offers numerous daily exposure over a month or so, hold off until your ad budget builds up a bit. And remember, radio advertising prices are almost always negotiable. There's a lot of daily air-time to fill on every radio station, so never accept the quoted price.
3. TV. Frequency rates are often available, but the important thing in TV is to try to target an audience that would most likely be interested in your products or services. Work with your ad rep to combine high frequency with targeted shows that would attract people likely to buy your products. Because TV ad packages almost always involve a high cash outlay, work with a marketing adviser or your business adviser to make sure that your sales potential justifies the expense.
4. The one possible exception to the rule of frequent placement is the case of monthly or quarterly magazines. Some readers hold onto these and re-read them frequently, and in the process may look at your single ad multiple times.
Another important point: don't vary your ads just for the sake of change. Your newspaper ad, for instance, might have appeared ten or more times during a month -- and you're tired of looking at it. But most readers won't have seen it even twice or three times during that span. They're far from getting bored with it. In fact, they just might be starting to notice it. Don't run an ad to death, of course, but be slow to change. Give the Seven Times Factor a chance to work for you.
