What if I were to tell you that there is a formula that can guarantee that your business will be top of mind AND will stick in the long-term memories of your potential customers? Interested? You should be! Understanding frequency will be the key to creating a successful small business, full of passion and provision all while having marketing that actually works.
Frequency is something that many business owners want to understand, but just don’t really know how to implement it or what strategy to use. With frequency in marketing there can be just enough frequency, too much frequency and too little frequency. The key is getting just the right amount of frequency.
What is frequency?
Frequency is how often you are telling people about who you are and what your business does. This can be done through various means, such as TV, radio, print, etc.
Here’s your formula to live by:
3 times a week/ 52 weeks a year.
The important thing that you must understand here is that the 3 times a week is how many times that potential customer of yours will be hearing your message. This does not mean how many times you have a commercial air or a radio spot play. Always think about it from the customer’s perspective.
Why is frequency important?
People don’t necessarily care about your company or your brand. If you don’t tell them often enough in ways that are relevant, it’s not going to be helpful. Frequency is so important because the brain chooses to evaluate what’s important based on frequency or severity. Severity is the exception to the rule in marketing and branding.
Every single night you go to sleep the brain systematically wipes out the information it doesn’t need. Most of the things it gets rid of are benign things. It does inventory every single week. If it sees something logged in your brain consistently, three times a week, it keeps it in there. This is a long time filtering process that never stops. There’s a step at 3-4 months, 6 months and 12 months where the brain begins to log those messages into long-term memory.
Long-term memory means that you can remember something easily with several different ques. If someone asks you what restaurants sell pizza in your town you can most likely list the top three out of your long term memory without any prompting. You want this to be the case for your small business!
Memories don’t get built in the brain without the frequency of 3 times a week, 52 weeks a year. Doing this will do two things, log your message into your potential customers’ long term memory and keeping it top of mind.
Top of mind is how fast you recall something and in what order. If you just heard a commercial for a pizza parlor, and continue to hear it over and over, you are more likely to name that restaurant when thinking about a place to go eat.
Here’s a great example of frequency in marketing and advertising as noted by Thomas Smith—way back in 1815. The theory still remains true!
1. The first time a man looks at an advertisement, he does not see it.
2. The second time, he does not notice it.
3. The third time, he is conscious of its existence.
4. The fourth time, he faintly remembers having seen it before.
5. The fifth time, he reads it.
6. The sixth time, he turns up his nose at it.
7. The seventh time, he reads it through and says, “Oh brother!”
8. The eighth time, he says, “Here’s that confounded thing again!”
9. The ninth time, he wonders if it amounts to anything.
10. The tenth time, he asks his neighbor if he has tried it.
11. The eleventh time, he wonders how the advertiser makes it pay.
12. The twelfth time, he thinks it must be a good thing.
13. The thirteenth time, he thinks perhaps it might be worth something.
14. The fourteenth time, he remembers wanting such a thing a long time.
15. The fifteenth time, he is tantalized because he cannot afford to buy it.
16. The sixteenth time, he thinks he will buy it some day.
17. The seventeenth time, he makes a memorandum to buy it.
18. The eighteenth time, he swears at his poverty.
19. The nineteenth time, he counts his money carefully.
20. The twentieth time he sees the ad, he buys what it is offering.
One of the significant reasons why people fail at marketing and advertising is because they don’t understand how important frequency is and/or the rules of frequency. They don’t act in accordance to the rules. If you stick to this formula you will see success in your business. Even more, if you hire a marketing agency that understands how to use frequency, you will see an increase in your marketing efforts and profits alike.
Half a Bubble Out can help you implement this frequency formula and get your business's message out to your potential customers. Half a Bubble Out is a Passion and Provision company that helps small businesses all over the United States become successful. We specifically serve businesses in the Chico, Redding and Sacramento, California areas.
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