The Magic Frequency Number is 12

In the marketing biz, people often talk about the number of impressions, touches, hits, responses, likes or rating points.

How many touches does it take to have an impact?  The problem is few know what the impact should be:  awareness, purchase, identification, likes, engagement, contributions.

But once you know, what is the magic number?  I like to equate this to talking with teenagers.  How many times do you need to tell a teenager to clean his or her room before they do it?  I think it is somewhere between 12 and 15 times.

In fact, Visual IQ completed an analysis of client data and impressions and found 12 is the median number of times a consumer is exposed to brands’ messages before purchasing.  The median number of days from first brand exposure to purchase is 47.  That is 12 contacts.  Imagine asking a sales person if they have had 12 contacts with a prospect before abandoning the hunt—I’d guess the median for this is 3.

Of course, all of this depends on if the target audience you are trying to reach has any awareness of you at all.  For example, I get a fundraising letter from an organization that found my name and address.  I don’t know them at all.  I certainly don’t know them enough to give any money.  But for the past five years I’ve received an ask in the mail.  I suppose after 7 more years maybe they will have enough awareness to make me open and give.

12 to 15 touches—and that is for each message and subsequent response.   How many are you making with your marketing?   Not convinced?  Read this 11 more times and I think you will start to get the idea.

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How Many Times Do I Need to Talk About Frequency?

Results from the “2013 Edelman Trust Barometer,” the most informed people (35%) need to hear information from a company three times before they will believe it.  Another 29% need to hear the information 4-5 times.

“Informed people” are defined as those who are in the top 25% of household income, report significant media consumption and are engaged in business news and public policy.

The study also found that informed people trust the information from small companies differently than large companies.  More than 85% of informed consumers trust small business, 55% trust big business.

We often recommend that television campaigns have a frequency of 7 to 15 in order to have enough awareness to have an impact.  We now know how many times an informed public must hear information.  For the uninformed, it is much higher.

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Emailing into the Clutter

I read an article from the emailinsider e-newsletter that said, “…one email message often isn’t enough to persuade people to take the actions you want.”

If you have raised a teenager, you know that one of anything is not enough to persuade people (especially teenagers) to take the actions you want.

From the book Data Smog and research firms such as Yankleovich, it is estimated we are bombarded with around 5,000 brand messages a day.  How does one email make a difference?

You can be worried about sending too much email to a potential audience, but you should be even more worried you are not sending enough email.  Talk to any meeting scheduler from a nonprofit board and they will tell you it takes email after email (and then calls) to get everyone to respond.

Email depends on time of day, day of the week, workload of recipient, format (computer or smartphone), and how many emails are already in the recipient’s inbox.  Email is a lot like fishing—when you cast into the pond, you need the right bait, the right hook and the right equipment; and finally you need to have fish be in the vicinity of your action.

Your next email campaign may need to be an email series with different offers  or a set of reminders modified for message and creative.   It is going to take more than one, that’s why I’ll repeat this blog in a few months.

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