What means number of time the target audience is exposed to the message within a specific period?

A media plan is a document which specifies which media and vehicles will be purchased when, at what price and what results we expect as a result of our efforts.  It can include flow charts, details of specific magazines, reach and frequency estimates and budgets.

The main steps of Media Planning

• Assess the communications environment
• Define the target audience
• Set the media objectives
• Select the media mix
• Buy the media

Media Objectives

Your media objectives should be concrete, measurable and realistic!  Here is what goes into media objectives:

Frequency of Media

Frequency indicates how many times a consumer of the target group is exposed to your message (on average) within a set time period.  The $64,000,000 question of course is - how many times should you expose your customers to a message?  Research shows that increasing the frequency initially leads to increased recollection.  However, if the message is repeated too many times, it can lead to boredom and irritation.

There is a theory called 'economic signalling theory' which suggests that customers view repetitive advertising as a sign of quality in the brand.  The more a company spends on advertising, the more their confidence and trust in the quality of the brand and therefore, the better the product is perceived to be.

Reach and Weight of Media

Total reach is the number of people who have been exposed to your message over a specific time period.  There can be a big (and important) difference between 'reach' and 'useful reach'.  Reach is the number of consumers who see your message, but useful reach is about the number of consumers from your target audience who see your message!

Continuity of Media

For how long will your media campaign run?  This is a continuity question, and you've got 3 choices:

Continuous

This means you spend a continuous amount throughout the whole campaign period.  This can be more effective for larger projects where budgets aren't tight and a high return on investment is forecast.

Pulsing Schedule

A continuous level is maintained throughout with but during particular periods higher levels of advertising are used.  This may be more relevant for seasonal businesses for example where higher returns on investment are expected at different periods of time from marketing spend.

Flighting Schedule

During some months, no advertising takes place, but when it does it is very concentrated.  This option can be employed when there are limited marketing budgets to attempt to maximise return on investment from short bursts of activity.  It depends on the business as to whether this approach is a good long term solution.

Cost of Media

The cost of the media is usually represented as the cost per thousand (CPT), meaning the cost of reaching 1,000 people (or 1,000 useful people!).  The CPT is calculated by dividing the cost of the medium by the total reach and multiplying by 1,000

Selecting Media

In choosing the right media for your marketing campaign, you can consider reach, frequency, selectivity, geographic flexibility, speed of reach, message life and seasonal influences.  You might also think about qualitative criteria such as image-building capability, emotional impact and medium involvement.

As a design agency, we design all sorts of creative marketing including direct marketing, direct mail, point of sale, digital print, lytho printing, outdoor printing and large format printing.

THIS POST IS PART OF OUR LARGER "THE COMPLETE HANDBOOK FOR FREQUENCY IN ADVERTISING" CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE.

 

Reach vs. Frequency: Data-driven advertising makes it possible to engage your audience with precision and personalized marketing strategies. The marketing industry has turned marketing into an application of data science by drilling down into how many times you should engage with your target market to improve brand awareness and drive purchases. 

But the deeper you dive into the numbers, the more important it is to know which elements to prioritize, and there are two marketing metrics that often seem to butt heads: reach vs. frequency.

According to Branding Strategy Insider’s analysis of the right mix of reach and frequency, “Nielsen found in a 2017 study that digital ads needed between five and nine exposures to improve branding and increase consumer acceptance.” However, how you reach that number of interactions matters: you need to reach the right market over the right duration of time to ensure each exposure is high-quality and engaging. In this guide, we will explore what reach and frequency are and how they interact. Then we’ll discuss which one you should prioritize and, ultimately, how to optimize both elements.

Reach vs. Frequency

What Is Reach?

Reach is the number of viewers within a set period of time that are potentially exposed to your marketing effort or ad campaign. For example, a radio ad may have a reach of 80,000 listeners that regularly tune into the program. However, that reach does not guarantee that 80,000 people heard the ad — or were even actively listening to it if they did hear it. Effective reach is the smaller number of targeted consumers that likely did receive the message.

What Is Frequency?

Frequency is the number of times an individual consumer is likely to be exposed to an ad during a marketing campaign. Increasing the frequency of exposure increases both the likelihood that an individual has a high-quality engagement with the ad and that they have multiple touchpoints (or interactions) with your brand.

The Inverse Relationship Between Reach and Frequency

Maximizing both your reach and frequency throughout a marketing campaign can seem like an excellent way to secure new customers and drive more purchases. But when you have a finite budget, you can’t increase both factors. Generally, expanding your reach reduces your spending capacity for recurring ads. Similarly, increasing your frequency limits the money you can spend on reach.

With these limitations in mind, marketers need to be able to find the right balance in increasing reach and frequency. 

Reach vs. Frequency: Which Is More Important?

When you’re trying to keep your ad campaigns under budget, you might find yourself asking whether you should prioritize reach or frequency. While the difficult answer is “both,” there are times when you can safely prioritize one over the other.

When You Should Focus on Frequency

Ensuring your audience receives multiple instances of exposure to your message matters most when:

• You have a niche audience: When you have a very specific market, reaching outside of that market to a general audience simply isn’t profitable. Also, the specific ad messages that work best with a very niche audience won’t translate easily to other consumers.
• Your target market is ready to buy: Ramping up exposure through greater frequency is a very convincing tactic for shoppers that are ready to make a quick purchase.

Ultimately, frequency should be your priority when you already know your target market and you’re trying to drive sales.

When You Should Focus on Reach

Increasing reach is a great tool for expanding brand awareness in your target market. Your ideal customers may not yet be aware of your business, so trying new marketing media or using broader marketing channels is a great way to increase exposure. If you’re growing your business with new products or services or you want to grow your client base, prioritize reach.

Let’s revisit Branding Strategy Insider’s summary of the 2017 Nielsen report that states digital ads need between five and nine exposures to improve branding and increase consumer acceptance. Even when you’re just looking at the number of touchpoints your campaigns need to achieve different goals, sales campaigns prioritize frequency and brand awareness campaigns prioritize reach.

How to Optimize Reach vs. Frequency

Building out processes and best practices for optimizing reach and frequency is the best way to know what to do for any future campaigns and projects. One way to do that is to partner with a marketing service that manages your OTT/CTV ads for maximum effectiveness. At Strategus, we use the following tactics to make sure our clients’ campaigns have the right balance of reach for growth and frequency for purchases:

Frequency Capping

Frequency capping does precisely what the name implies: it caps the number of times someone is exposed to an ad (or even a set of ads) in a specific campaign. Because online marketing through platforms like OTT and CTV generate lots of granular data that can help guide your campaigns, you can cap frequency for specific individuals.

Benefits of Frequency Capping:

• You avoid marketing fatigue and overexposure to your ads. Even interested shoppers can become frustrated by seeing the same ad too many times in one day.
• You more efficiently manage marketing spend. Marketers get a higher ROI per ad view and across a campaign by making sure ads don’t funnel too many times to the same individual.

Dayparting

Dayparting is a popular tactic for scheduling the window — whether it be the time of day, day of the week, or both — when the ad plays. A restaurant may want to serve ads promoting their happy hour specials during business days and business hours, for example.   

Benefits of Dayparting:

• You more effectively reach your market when they’re likely to be watching or shopping.

Start Optimizing Your Reach and Frequency With Strategus

At Strategus, we specialize in optimizing online and digital marketing campaigns so you cost-effectively reach your target market. Talk to us today about finding the right balance between reach and frequency for your next campaign.