"Welcome to the Finding Business podcast, where every Sunday, in just five minutes, you'll learn practical strategies to attract your ideal clients and accounts. I'm your host, Scott Channell. For more episodes and information on services offered, visit my website at scottchannell.com — that's Scott Channell with two T's, two N's, and two L's dot come. Now, onto today's episode."
How many people see or hear your marketing messages?
How often do active or future buyers encounter your message?
And how much does your message resonate with them?
These are the marketing concepts of reach, frequency, and impact.
If your sales or marketing campaigns are working, you probably have these concepts in balance. But in my experience, when your efforts aren’t producing results, it’s often because one or more of these concepts is off.
Whether you’re using traditional methods or digital strategies, getting these elements aligned significantly increases your odds of success—and lowers your costs for generating qualified opportunities.
Let’s define reach, frequency, and impact, and then walk through some examples.
Reach
Reach refers to the total number of people who could be exposed to your message. Think of it as the full universe of potential viewers or listeners. For example, if you advertise on TV, your reach is the number of people watching. If you mail a flyer to 1,000 households, your reach is 1,000. On a digital platform, reach refers to the total number of impressions. The key idea: reach is about how many people might see your message.
Frequency
Frequency is the number of times an individual person sees or hears your message. Repetition is important because it often takes multiple exposures for someone to remember or act on what they’ve seen. You may be familiar with the marketing rule of 7, which states that a customer must see a message seven times before they will take action.
Impact
Impact measures how strongly your message influences someone’s actions or awareness. If your message is creative, relevant, communicates value and is delivered at the right time, it will impact buyers. If not, it won’t.
Now let’s look at some examples:
Picture yourself standing on the side of a busy highway during rush hour, holding a cardboard sign. You have great reach—tons of cars driving by. But frequency is low, as drivers only get a brief glance. And the impact? Zero. High reach, low frequency, no impact.
Now imagine instead of a small sign, you have a giant billboard with a compelling offer. If 5% of the drivers need what you’re offering, and they see your billboard every day, you’ve got the same reach and frequency, but now there’s impact on that 5%. Your message is clear, meets their needs, and sticks with them.
True Story
Years ago, I worked with a law firm that had a problem. They were running ads on a TV station with a signal that reached 200 miles. These ads were expensive, so they only ran two a week, and they weren’t getting results. Why? They had lots of reach, but low frequency, and no real impact on those most likely to hire them.
We dug deeper and discovered that 95% of their clients were located within 10 miles of their office. So, I suggested they try advertising on local cable. The reach was smaller—just 10 miles instead of 200—but since local cable ads were cheaper, they were able to run 20 ads per week. By refocusing their reach more effectively and increasing frequency, the impact on new business generated was huge. They saw tremendous results at a fraction of the cost.
Key Lesson
This is another example of how success in marketing often comes from knowing what not to do. It’s the 80/20 rule in reverse: if you understand the most common reasons for failure and avoid them, you’ll be in a better position to succeed. One of those mistakes is hitting the wrong audience, too infrequently, with a message that doesn’t clearly communicate value.
Whether you’re using traditional or digital marketing, online or off, mastering the concepts of reach, frequency, and impact is essential to your success—or failure.
Hope this got you thinking.
For more information about this podcast, show episodes and service offerings, go to Scott Channell with two t’s, two n’s and two l’s, dot com.
Thanks for listening.