If your business is like most, you don’t have an unlimited marketing budget. Your finite funds have to be spent wisely to garner as many new customers as you can. In pursuing this goal, you have direct mail postcards that you want to send out, but you run into an important question: should you send one round of postcards to a large number of people, or should you send multiple rounds of your postcard to a select group of potential customers.
In other words, should you focus on reach or frequency? In this post, you’ll learn the difference between these concepts as well as find out which could be the most beneficial for your business.
What Do Reach and Frequency Mean?
Reach refers to the number of people who will receive your marketing content; this number is usually based on how many addresses you send your direct mail, which means that if you send a postcard to 12,000 addresses, your reach value is 12,000.
Frequency is the number of times your mailing recipients are exposed to your marketing content. Let’s say you send out the postcard 3 times to the same group—the value of your frequency would be 3.
In a perfect world, reach and frequency wouldn’t be pitted against each other. Unfortunately, many companies must choose between these two concepts when putting together a marketing plan.
Which Is Better: Reach or Frequency?
If you have a marketing plan that pays for 10,000 postcards, you have to decide whether to mail it to 10,000 different potential customers 1 time or send it to 2,500 households 4 times. Which one is a smarter strategy?
At first, you may favor higher reach; after all, more people means more new customers, right? While the number is undeniably larger, you also need to consider the quality of exposure you have with your audience. Those who receive just one postcard may easily forget the brand, yielding a lower response percentage. In contrast, consumers who receive multiple marketing messages from the same company are more likely to convert.
Studies show that repetition has a powerful impact on making brands memorable to consumers. That’s why telephone numbers and website URLs are repeated at the end of ads on the radio or on streaming commercials. By targeting and focusing your attention on a smaller number of customers with multiple mailings, your response percentage may be higher with a greater frequency.
Although reach certainly has its place and purpose in your marketing plan, don’t let the higher numbers distract you from a more balanced strategy for expanding your customer base.
About Strategic Marketing Solutions
Strategic Marketing Solutions offers service for any kind of marketing you wish to pursue for your small business. From logo design to SEO, from signage to direct mailers, we can help you get your brand in front of more potential customers and help you develop a marketing strategy that fits your goals and your budget. To learn more about SMS, you may contact us online here.