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Seth Godin in his book Permission Marketing uses an analogy of seeds and water to demonstrate importance of assuring adequate frequency in your promotional campaigns. If you were given 100 seeds with enough water to water each seed once would you plant all 100 seeds and water each one once or would you be more successful if you planted 25 seeds and used all of water on those 25 seeds?
While intuitively and even conceptually we understand importance of frequency to successful promotional and sales campaigns, somehow when it comes to actually implementing campaign, we opt to sacrifice frequency for reach. And then we complain about ineffectiveness of our promotional efforts. Undoubtedly one of biggest wastes of marketing dollars is promotional activities that are implemented without adequate frequency.
When faced with decision of mailing one direct mail piece to 10,000 people or mailing to 2,500 people four times think about fate of those 100 seeds you can water only once. Unless you have water rights and can obtain additional water, opt for less reach and more frequency.
Julie Chance is president of Strategies-by-DESIGN, a Dallas based firm that helps small businesses and service professionals Map A Path to Success by providing consulting, training and skills based coaching in the area of marketing strategy development. For more information or to sign up for our free marketing tips e-newsletter go to www.strategies-by-design.com or call 972-701-9311
© 2003 Strategies-by-DESIGN. May be reprinted with credits and contact information.