Today, we’re talking about…Reach and Frequency in local advertising.
NB: This is an article from Tambourine
The business of visibility.
Hotel restaurants and spas face an identical marketing challenge: A lack of street-side visibility. Getting hotel guests to take advantage of great amenities is one thing, but introducing your product to locals who may or may not know your restaurant or spa even exists requires another strategy entirely.
The “Billboard Effect.”
Traditional billboard advertising offers a great lesson in local marketing that hotel marketers would do well to remember. Why put a billboard up in the most prominent and high traffic spot in town? Well, for two reasons: 1) The number of people who see it (Reach) in the local market is significant. 2) The number of times they see it (Frequency) in a given month is high enough to be memorable. Striking the right balance between reach and frequency is a key principle of building awareness. And it should be at the forefront of any local marketing strategy.
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Compromise is where you lose them.
Unfortunately, local advertisers—of which hotel marketers are no exception—typically sacrifice one of these two metrics (mostly frequency) for the sake of cost. For example, one might choose a one-off print ad in a weekly mailer instead of 4-5 consecutive direct mail pieces to a select zip code. Repetition is what helps build awareness. Without it, your campaign is more likely to be ignored.
The difference between doing it and doing it well.
Hotel marketers make a lot of the same compromises when it comes to their digital display advertising. Instead of applying the principle of reach and frequency, they opt for campaigns that target large numbers of “new users” at low frequency. Or worse, small numbers at ultra high frequency, which can equally undermine your strategy.
Budgeting for optimal frequency.
Studies show that too much frequency can actually have an adverse effect on consumers. Optimal frequency is somewhere around 4-5. So while it’s important to increase frequency, too much can actually push consumers in the other direction.
The power of local display.
Today, digital display ads of all shapes and sizes from google to facebook give hotel marketers incredible insights as well as robust tools to hyper-target local audiences. Want to target men and women ages 35 and up in a specific zip code? No problem. Want to target everyone within a five mile radius of your restaurant? You got it.
Applying the principles of reach and frequency to these advanced targeting tools gives hotel marketers greater control of their marketing and greater insight into that very complex question: How much advertising is too much? And how much is not enough?
Flash back!
What are some of the local marketing techniques you leverage? Do you tend to favor one-off campaigns over a repetitive, always on strategy?
