Our advertisers want their advertising to work. Amazing. They give us money. We give them commercials. They want people to come into their businesses and buy things.
So do we. We want our clients to experience great results from their advertising so that they will continue as our customers. How we schedule their commercials (plus what the commercials say) will greatly determine what kind of results they experience. What the commercials say is the subject of another newsletter. Today we'll talk about how to create successful schedules.
Two of the biggest and most frequent mistakes made by advertisers are not scheduling enough commercials weekly and not airing them for a long enough time to influence the listener. We know that people learn through repetition. Think about how you learned your multiplication tables, the alphabet, or a foreign language. Repetition played a large part in how much you retained. It is the same way with advertising.
E.L. Thorndyke, in "Educational Psychology", explained the "Curve of Forgetting." Even with meaningful material, after one day his test subjects only remembered 72% of what they heard. After five days, they remembered 56%, after ten days, 47%, and after 30 days, only 30%.
He also tested recall after a sales call. After one day, clients remembered 72%. After one week they remembered 52%, and after one month they remembered 30%. This should tell us that every time we are in front of a client, we need to resell them on our station and on why their advertising dollars should be invested in broadcast.
One of the reasons that people do not retain material is the power of sleep. Sleep functions as a cleansing mechanism for the brain. Have you ever had the experience of being worried about something and then getting a good night's sleep? The next morning, chances are you feel better. You're not so worried anymore. You've experienced the cleansing power of sleep. But sleep also washes away some of the impressions that advertising has made on the brain during the day. This is why advertising must be frequent and long-term. It must find its way into the brain and remain there despite sleep. How well your client's message is retained is a function of ad repetition/customer sleep.
Establishing a brand identity is like taking three steps forward and two steps back. You must have sufficient repetition to overcome the cleansing effects of sleep. Long-term branding campaigns should expose the customer at least three times within each seven nights' sleep, 52 weeks a year. The mistake that many of our customers make is not advertising long enough and with enough frequency. When you think about it, aren't your most successful advertisers usually those who use annual contracts? They are able to establish their brands in the minds of the consumer.
Broadcasting is powerful. It can affect behavior. It will move product. So the next time a client asks, "What does it take to successfully advertise?" you know what to say: "Expose your message at least three times in a seven nights' sleep cycle for at least 52 weeks." Great advertising results are waiting for your clients!
Happy Selling!
|