The process of enhancing your company or your client’s company’s ability to get more customers—whether B2B, B2C, or B2B2C—is the same today as it was 100 years ago: a marketer needs to determine the best way to communicate to the greatest number of people who may be interested in the product or service.

Regardless of whether it’s traditional advertising or an interactive marketing campaign, the same three principles apply—Reach, Frequency, and Relevancy. Much like a three-legged stool, these principles must all be at work in an ad campaign for it to be effective.

A few months ago we put up a post to help define these concepts; this one touches on why those concepts matter now more than ever before.

In a fragmented media landscape and an era in which consumers are becoming more and more accustomed to getting g content and information that is tailored to them, and they have so many choices of media outlets for the content they read, listen to, view, or otherwise consume.

Reach is the number of different people in a target demographic (age, gender) that can be reached with an advertising message.

• One-hundred-percent reach would mean the message reached all people in the demographic and geographic footprint in which you do business.
• Perfect reach would mean reaching 100% of the target audience that you want to buy the product or service at the time you are advertising.

Neither “perfect reach” nor “100% reach” is achievable.

It could be argued that some giant brands like Coke achieve 100% reach because of their impressive brand equity and the sheer number of ads they run, but at the end of the day, perfect reach is unattainable. Why? Because Coke’s geographic footprint is worldwide, and there are still parts of the world that don’t watch television, listen to radio, read newspapers, or have the internet. That said, Coke’s reach is still impressive, likely 90% in the US alone.

Optimum Effective Reach

Frequency is the number of different times you reach a target audience (demographic) with your message. The proper amount of frequency needed in order to get someone to take action or remember your brand is an ongoing debate.

Regardless, herein lays the opportunity to enhance a combine by using the right mix of reach and frequency.

An old rule of thumb some brand advertisers use for optimum effective reach is trying to reach a target audience three times within a reasonable time period (such as monthly) or several times over a longer period of time.

Really, the appropriate reach varies depending on a number of different factors, such as

• The price of the product or service being advertised
• Whether the message is passive or intrusive
• The stage of the buying cycle a consumer is in when they are reached for the first time (granted, different for a restaurant advertiser and an automotive advertiser)
• The type of product being sold
• Whether it’s a brand message or a call to action

But What Does it Mean to Me and Why Should I Care?

Relevancy is trying to develop the appropriate content and creative elements for an advertisement to get your message to the target audience as succinctly as possible. They need to know…

• What you do
• How it can solve a need or want they have now or in the future
• How they can obtain the product or service when they need or want to

This is why reach and frequency alone are not enough for a successful advertising campaign.

The Three-Legged Stool

And the nirvana for marketers in terms of reach, frequency, and relevancy?

Getting the Right Message to the Right Person at the Right Time – reaching someone in the target audience with the right information at the time they want to purchase.

To get there, Reach, Frequency, and Relevancy must all be in play to ensure effectiveness of an advertising campaign.

Full-service advertising, marketing & association-management firm Location: Corpus Christi, TX Geographic Focus: Local & Regional Clients: B2C Media Bought: Online & Offline Annual Media Spend: $200,000 Agency Size: 3 employees

Bucket Works has been in the advertising business for a long time.

The family-owned ad agency based in Corpus Christi buys media of all types for their clients, who are business-to-consumer advertisers.

Over the years the folks at Bucket Works have noticed a gradual shift in the media engagement of consumers in the market—and the impact these trends have had on media buying.

With about five major broadcast stations and four major local online properties, “the internet is slowly becoming more available to buyers,” says ad exec Lexi Buquet. “The emphasis on print is diminishing, but luckily they are supplementing with effective websites.”

The biggest challenge in planning and buying media can be summed up in one word—numbers. “Especially with online,” Lexi says. “It’s having the numbers to back that up, what the rates are based on.”

Clients want to see both strategy and tactics.

To help demonstrate the value of each media type, Lexi uses Avenue Right’s campaign builder and reporting tools to simplify her process and what she presents to her clients.

“It’s amazing how simple this can be now—modern and simple,” she says. “The campaign breakdown is so easy to read. This is what the next generation of media buyers is looking for.”

Learn more about Avenue Right’s campaign planning tools.