Welcome. Hope it’s a good day.

Flavour of the month?

If you’re around to enjoy all 12 months, that’s not a bad thing. But many campaigns are designed around a 4 or perhaps 8 week cycle and then disappear.

A huge cacophony of noise shouting  ‘I’m Here’, ‘Come Try Me Now’, ‘Limited Time only’, and it may or may not trigger sales, awareness, interest and then marketing flatlines.

No question the money has to be spent smart. Efficiently. Timely and deliver results. But your campaign should be based on specific timing, using best research for the media which can consistently, persistently be in front of your target for as long a period as you’re able.

Today I may not be in the mood to buy your hamburger, or purchase winter tires, or need that cruise vacation, or a new bicycle.  BUT that does not mean your message won’t work next week, or 26 days from now, or 4 months from today. Therein is the challenge for most products.

Keeping your name top of mind to an audience who may not need you at the time you’re advertising. But you need to keep enough profile in front of them so that when the time comes for them to want a hamburger, winter tires, cruise or bicycle, YOU are the provider they think of.

In my experience to date, perhaps yours too, the most successful clients I’ve enjoyed working with had one thing in common – they advertised consistently.

Sometimes different spend levels. Often different media mixes as we were experimenting what worked and what didn’t. Very often different products within the same family.

But they were in the marketplace on an ongoing basis. Their year might look something like: In for 3 months, out for one, in for 2 months, out for ½ month, back in for 3 months, out for one, back in for 1 ½ months.

They were never out of their marketplace long enough to be forgotten. The residual of recognition they had built up carried them through their short hiatus periods.

I grant you not every advertiser has the resources to keep consistent weight up through the year. But importantly, they maintained some presence to a primary market, and kept their message(s) out there on a reliable consistent presence.

When there is a specific seasonality or time sensitivity to your product or event or service, then it makes absolute sense to create awareness in advance of the peak sales period and sustain presence through that flight.

When your campaign is not tied to specific months of the calendar, it can be very advantageous to keep your name, product, service out there on an ongoing basis.

If you roll the dice and spend the lot on a two month campaign in March and April, you’re counting on less than 20% of the year to deliver 100% of your sales and revenue. Better be really, really sure that your two month flight can generate a year’s worth of presence and keep you top of mind for your client in the face of all your competition for a full year until the next campaign.

It’s a lot easier to sell to an existing customer than continually generate new ones. That’s why a sustained presence over the long term will build the brand and increase long-term memory of what you offer.

Do not rely on your clients to remember you. You have to make yourself unforgettable.

Stay tuned.

Dennis Kelly
dennis@firstimpressionsmedia.ca

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