Originally featured in The OffBeat Business Magazine February 2015 issue.
By Jack Bick
Your advertising campaign becomes a campaign once you start making decisions about placement.
The two laws about media placement are reach and frequency.
Reach is how many people will see the message for the fewest dollars. You do not want to miss important market segments that are essential to your success.
Frequency is how many times those people will see the message to get a response. People need to see your message several times to be motivated to react. Educators say that we need to be exposed to something 10 times to really learn it.
Here are the three factors to consider: First, consider the budget. If you have a small budget, then use fewer outlets with enough frequency to get a response.
Start with your most important market segment and deliver your message until that segment is saturated. Remember, frequency, read consistency, is an undeniable rule in media.
Second, start strong and taper down once people begin to react. Many business people want to test a message or a medium by doing a small ad to see if it works. That is like starting off the tee with a putter in golf. It is not test at all.
The first rule of communications is to get attention.
Third, make your decision based on the quality of the audience for your business, not on price or ego. Many people want to be in a certain publication because it is prestigious. Actually, there is no prestige in a failed ad campaign.
Similarly, you usually get what you paid for. Media does not sell cheap if that media really pays off for its advertisers. In addition, color and premium position are valuable enhancements. Color will increase the readership of your ad by 60% in print publications. Premium placement will keep you out of the clutter in almost every medium.
For instance, the first ad of the half time in the Super Bowl gets more eyes that the fourth spot when people have already headed to the restroom or the snack table.
With media placement, common sense will be your best partner. If you are taking a long shot you have a high percentage for failure. If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t going to be true to your success.
Jack Bick is an expert in the publishing arena, a business coach and speaker. To learn more, go to JackBick.com
