How many marketing touches does it take to affect buying preferences and to increase your brand preference? I was going through some of my old files and ran across one of my all-time favorite pieces of advice. It goes like this:
1. The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
2. The second time, they don’t notice it.
3. The third time, they are aware that it is there.
4. The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
5. The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
6. The sixth time, they thumb their nose at it.
7. The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
8. The eighth time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”
9. The ninth time, they start to wonder that they may be missing out on something.
10. The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
11. The eleventh time, they wonder how this company is paying for all those ads.
12. The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
13. The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
14. The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
15. The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
16. The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
17. The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
18. The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
19. The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
20. The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what it is offering.
I confess I read a reprint of this, not the original. Since Thomas Smith originally published it in 1885, that’s probably not a bad thing.
As much as things change in 122 years, they stay the same as well.
Professional services firms seem to fall into two camps when it comes to the nature of their marketing communications.
Camp 1 focuses on marketing their capabilities; telling world what they do (e.g. tax law, litigation, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, etc.)
Camp 2 focuses on marketing their value; telling the world how they make a difference for their clients (e.g. higher profits, lower costs, smoother operations, better marketing, mitigated liabilities, problems solved, etc.)
Capabilities focused marketers view benefits messages, value messages, and personality messages as “worthless pap.” The folks in value camp just die when they see what the capabilities camp people say about themselves: “How can you think that putting a 17 item bulleted list of capabilities is at all helpful in your marketing? How boring and undifferentiated is that!”
To most marketers, the villains of this story are the capabilities folks (usually firm leaders and line managers, not marketers). Any marketing person worth their Fleur De Sel de Camargue believes that focusing on benefits and value is the way to go. We’ve been programmed that way.
Here’s the problem with focusing on value only: people don’t know what you do! I’ve spoken with many a bummed out services provider brooding about how a client or prospect has hired some other firm to deliver services that they offer.
Now this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t focus on value, benefits, or personality. You should. But you should do it in a way that helps clients and prospects to know when they should use you.
For example, picture a direct mail letter that focuses on “5 Questions Every Mid-Market Company CFO Needs to Answer.” You pose the questions. You note how you help people answer them all the time. And you note the specific services that you offer that helps you answer them. At the end of the direct mail letter, you make an offer of value, “Visit www.websitehere.com/5questions to download our white paper that outlines how 7 CFOs at mid-market companies have tackled these questions, and the difference it’s made in their financial results.”
The letter is more interesting. It outlines problems, the value of solving them, and with which services of yours you’ve solved them.
Key message: In your value-based marketing, make sure you communicate what you do as well.
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