September 2004

Once… or Even Three Times… Isn’t Enough: Communication Metrics Have Changed
By Deborah Henken, Highland Marketing

In the past, media choices focused on radio, TV, newspaper, magazines, and billboards; and the typical metric has been three: messages must run three times in each media choice to be noticed. But not anymore! Why? Potential customers—both business and consumer—are bombarded with marketing messages all of the time, everywhere. Email, Websites, cell phones, PDAs, and the floor of your grocery store are our new mediums. There are ads on buildings, taxicabs, grocery carts, and even the body of your favorite sports star. This exponential expansion of media choices has dramatically altered traditional communication beliefs

It Takes Seven Times to Break Through the Advertising Clutter

With all this competition vying for the mind of audiences, the new metric is seven impressions. A prospective customer must see your message on average seven times for it to stand out from all the other messages they see each day. The first time or two, it may not be noticed. By the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh time, the human brain starts realizing it’s been seeing a lot about this product or company.

Invest in Product Development, Invest in Getting the Message Out

Given the challenge of getting messages to target audiences, it's amazing that companies are willing to allocate enormous resources—including people, capital, and time—to develop a product or service, but they aren’t prepared to commit the marketing resources necessary to reach their target markets. To generate revenues, you must get your message out. This isn’t the place to cut back!

When companies decide to send only a one-time ad or one direct mailing with no follow-up activities, they get lost in the noise. Their unique benefits aren’t noticed. Your message must be seen again and again to stand out and compel your targets to take action—thus generating leads and sales.

Integrated Marketing Is the Answer

What’s a businessperson to do? The good news is that you don’t have to do one marketing activity seven times. There’s a way to stand out in a customer’s mind—integrated marketing, where you use a variety of methods to gain awareness, move the prospect to interest and demand, and then to a sale.

Are there some marketing communications that get attention in one fell swoop—yes, sometimes. Product launches using six-page spreads in the Wall Street Journal or local papers across the U.S. may generate awareness; so might ads for the Olympics or other large sporting events. However, these communication strategies cost big bucks, typically more than you’d spend on a variety of smaller integrated marketing activities.

In order to be successful, it’s important to keep the following three tenets in mind when implementing an integrated marketing program:

• Truly understand your customer
  For your integrated marketing activities to be effective, you must thoroughly understand your audience. If you don’t, how will you know which vehicles and programs are most apt to work. Learn what your audience reads, sees, and does every day. Are they urban commuters riding public transportation or driving to work? Are they soccer moms transporting kids to and from home, school, and various activities? Gaining insight into your customers’ lives helps ensure that your efforts will reach them. If you’re unfamiliar with what they see, hear, and read on a daily basis, you’ll never reach them, no matter how many times you send out your message.
• Identify the right combination of communication vehicles
  Understanding your customer enables you to select the best marketing vehicles to include in your seven-impressions metric. Recently, Pitney Bowes wanted to target CEOs in order to change its brand perception. For its integrated marketing approach to work, Pitney Bowes needed to create a program that matched its target market’s interests and lifestyle. Realizing that CEOs often travel, Pitney Bowes used airport billboards as a key component. The company also sent a new book by a well-know business writer to its target list and invited them to private meetings with the author, knowing that the CEOs wanted exclusive information to help them grow their businesses.
• Make sure your messages are consistent
  You don’t want to use the exact same copy on billboards, radio, print ads, and email. However, each message must support your overall brand, position, and benefits. They all must work together, highlighting the same benefits and differentiating you from the competition. Once a prospect does recognize your company, brand, and message, each subsequent integrated marketing activity will reinforce that message.

Action Steps to Take Now

• Evaluate each customer segment you target. Do you understand what they do, read, and see? What’s their day-to-day life like? What’s the best way to reach them?
• Document your current marketing efforts. Identify what you’re doing.
• Analyze them. Are you doing one-shot activities or are you following through and consistently touching your target audience with your messages and benefits?
• Evaluate them. Highlight those one-shot tactics and determine whether you can expand them or if they should be put away for now. For example, if you did a one-time ad and feel it's an effective way to reach a target audience, identify places to run it again. Also, increase the number of impressions to your prospects. If you did a direct mail, send it to the audience again with a new offer. Just because they don’t answer the first time doesn’t mean they’re not interested. Remember, it takes an average of seven times to make an impact.
• Evaluate your budget. Are you spending too little, just enough, or too much? Search the Internet for data on marketing spend rates in your industry to see where you stand, or talk to your peers.
• Compare them. Review your competitors’ marketing efforts. How are they reaching the same people and companies you're trying to touch? See if you can find out what's working and not working for them.

Deborah Henken is the founder of Highland Team, a consulting firm that creates revenue-enhancing, go-to-market strategies and programs to launch and grow business. They not only help clients identify the correct markets to target, but they also help them reach those markets with tailored programs that include positioning, channel strategies, awareness, demand creation, and more. For more information, call Deborah at 650-224-6295, send her an email, or visit Highland Team’s Website.