Reaching Your Customers

Businesses are constantly looking for the fastest, most direct, most effective and least costly means of reaching their target customers and convincing them to do business with them. Often in their attempts to reach their target customers they may try things like newspaper advertising, radio advertising, and direct mail. And often they are disappointed with the results. So why is it that some companies seem to be successful at using mass media for advertising while others are not?

A large part of the secret to success in advertising is what we call the “Three Times Rule.” In order for advertising to be successful, you need to repeatedly reach your potential customers with the same message over and over — at least three times, and preferably more.

What this means is that instead of taking out one large full-page newspaper ad and running it once, you are better off buying three smaller ads and running the same ad three times in a row. If you are running radio ads, you are better off running shorter more frequent ads rather than longer ads less frequently. In direct mail, you can cut your mailing list to one-third its size and do three mailings to the same list instead of just one large mailing.

The basic theory behind the “Three Times Rule” is that the world around us is so cluttered with advertising that you have to keep repeating your message over and over before it makes an impression on your target audience. If someone notices your ad once, they probably won’t remember it because they will be bombarded with hundreds of other ads before they take any action regarding yours. But if they keep seeing your same ad over and over it starts to make an impression on them and they start to remember it. Then when it comes time to make a purchase, the ads that have hit them most often will be at the top of their minds, and you have a much better chance of getting an interested customer.

This is one reason why e-mail marketing is so effective.  You can keep sending your message to your customers repeatedly on a weekly or monthly basis for very little cost.  You can keep reminding them that you are there and that you have goods and services that they want.  If you include information in your e-mails that your customers find useful or entertaining, they will continue reading your e-mails and repeatedly getting your message.   This translates into more business for you.