Stay front of mind

Of the 5 traditional media planning & buying principles, continuity is often forgotten in B2B marketing (the other 4 are reach, frequency, impact and coverage).

We aim to reach a portion of our target audience with an optimum frequency, by addressing the area in which we aim to build solid coverage, with impact. We then generate leads and try to close them. If it doesn’t work, we often move on to a new addressable market. Sometimes we even exclude previous campaign responders that didn’t convert from new marketing activities.

But what if it was bad timing? What if we reached the right people, with the right message, in an impactful way and built our brand awareness, using an optimal frequency plan, but the buyer simply wasn’t ready yet?

Building a plan for continuity enables a marketer to stay front of mind, so that when these prospective buyers are ready, they come to us first.

Unlike an acquisition campaign, designed to illicit an immediate direct response, the continuity campaign can act in an almost subliminal way, simply keeping the brand at the front of mind in the longer term. Crucially, an always on campaign with regular branding, helps the marketer to stay front of mind when the prospect is ready to enter the consideration phase of their buying journey. If the campaign can also offer value, in the form of insights or entertainment, the brand will stay front of mind and be associated with positive emotions.

Coca Cola is an awesome example of a brand with a solid continuity approach, from consumer FMCG marketing. With feel-good festive TVCs, great product placement in feel-good movies and iconic out of home advertising, the brand elicits an emotional response, far beyond the memory of previous consumption alone, when the consumer is faced with a wide choice of brown fizzy drinks.

The best prospective buyers in our future, may be the ones that got away in the past, so don’t forget them. It probably cost a lot of money to generate their initial interest, so why not reach out again and show them a little love with your insights, ideas and maybe a little fun?

I’ve been working in the advertising and marketing space for 20 years and often hear from former clients or prospects with a new campaign to run, that joined a new business or team, or who launched a new product line that they need help with. We’ve had clients take several years to decide to run a promotion and come back to us out of the blue. We notice there is a spike of this type of interest after we produce newsletters or articles and that the interest is usually completely unrelated to the content. Perhaps the marketing message is simply a trigger to wake up a dormant marketing idea. Either way, it’s always great to be the first to be considered as a partner for the activity.

I hope this article has left Dataphoria in the front of your mind, in a warm and fuzzy way. Thanks for reading!