What’s More Important In Advertising: Reach Or Frequency?

Your radio and television advertising campaigns should increase your customer base, improve customer loyalty and drive sales. But when you’re making plans to reach these goals, you may wonder which metric is more important: reach or frequency.

Reach is the percentage of potential customers who will see or hear your campaign at least once during a predetermined time frame. Frequency is the average number of times a target is exposed to your campaign over a period of time.

The right question to ask is not which one is more important, as both are valuable. The better inquiry to make is how to best use each metric, depending on your business goals and your product’s/service’s buying cycle. Here’s the bottom line: you need to hit the sweet spot for both reach and frequency, and in some cases, place more value on one or the other.

For example, a well-established brand with a strong relationship with the masses may be able to reduce frequency and focus more on reach. In this example, you may favor reach over frequency; however, a targeted sales message or limited-time offer, regardless of brand reputation, needs to consider frequency over reach to break through the clutter and get noticed by potential customers.

If you’re a local restaurant selling sandwiches at lunchtime, knowing many lunch time decisions aren’t pre-planned, you’ll want to favor frequency to keep that message out there all the time. In this case, you’ll need frequency in your advertising to hit around lunch or dinner times.

If you’re selling cars, which is a once every two- to five-year purchase, you’ll want to reach as many people as possible. But you should also prioritize building relationships so that when folks are in the market to buy, your brand is top of mind. In this example, reach without frequency might yield poor return.

What many companies fail to consider in a campaign is the consumer’s intent. It’s uncommon to find potential customers sitting around thinking, “Gosh. I want a sandwich from [your store].” Or, “Wahoo. My tire just blew out. I’ll use [your brand].” If you want people to buy from you, you need to approach people on their terms and when they need your product or service – that is, using both reach and frequency.

Sure, people sometimes just enjoy lunch, but they never enjoy going to get a new set of tires or an oil change. Often, people may want help to discover what stocks they should invest in to address a certain pain point. But in order for people to think of your business in their time of need, you need to have your message out there when they are the most receptive to the product or service you’re offering.

The important questions to ask when you’re considering reach and frequency are:

• What are you trying to achieve with the current campaign?
• With this information in hand, buy media to fit the needs of either the reach or frequency that will help you achieve that goal.

Unfortunately, advertising is not an exact science. However, effective advertising is something you can do well, if you know the right questions to ask, you’re in lockstep with your customers’ pain points, needs and desires, and you work with a reputable advertising agency who will walk you through the process.