transactional<\/a> shoppers \u2013 shoppers who are simply looking for a great deal today. <\/p>\nA direct marketer closely watches the costs of customer acquisition, so he can stop sending those relatively expensive mailings to people who don\u2019t respond to his offer. The individuals on his \u201clist\u201d either react in the first, second, or fifth mailing (whatever his cost ceiling) or they\u2019re dropped from the list and they don’t hear from him again.<\/p>\n
But mass media can\u2019t offer that kind of selectivity.<\/b> <\/p>\n
You can\u2019t change the physics of television broadcasting to prevent the people who didn’t buy from being exposed to your ad again. You can\u2019t block the view of the billboard only when non-purchasers drive by (and by the nature of the medium the cost of customer acquisition wouldn’t change, anyway). <\/p>\n
Which is why direct marketers don\u2019t often use mass media. They consider those non-buyers to be “wasted circulation.” <\/p>\n
And that\u2019s a shame, because mass media provides great opportunities to cost effectively reach those transactional buyers. Of course, the same mass media provide great opportunities to cost effectively reach relational buyers. <\/p>\n
And eventually someone always asks, \u201cCan\u2019t we design an ad to appeal to both transactional and relational buyers?\u201d<\/i> <\/p>\n
No. We can\u2019t. <\/p>\n
No ad can successfully appeal to two opposite purchase motives. The right thing to say to one is exactly the wrong thing to say to the other. <\/p>\n
Which prompts today\u2019s question.<\/b><\/p>\n
On those rare occasions when a direct marketer uses mass media to attract transactional buyers, is it possible to achieve top-of-mind-awareness, too? <\/p>\n
Humm. <\/p>\n
Yes. Yes it is. A lot depends on how long those ads continue to run. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n
Take an attorney. Call him, oh\u2026 call him \u201cHammering Henry.\u201d Henry traditionally screams into the tube \u201cI\u2019ll fight hard to get you the money you deserve for your pain and suffering. Call me now.\u201d<\/i> <\/p>\n
Henry buys massive amounts of gross rating points. Henry is also the only lawyer advertising on television in his market. <\/p>\n
Over a period of time, when Henry\u2019s ad is heavily repeated and no one else bothers to put any message on TV, who are accident victims likely to call? Which name is top-of-their-collective-minds?<\/p>\n
It’s Henry.<\/p>\n
Henry isn\u2019t screaming at the camera in order to build the Henry brand. He’s simply doing his best to make the phone ring. He\u2019s telling people who\u2019ve had an accident to pick up the phone and call him NOW. <\/p>\n
But, over the months and years that he continues to advertise, how many other names will the average driver remember? <\/p>\n
By default Henry IS<\/b> top-of-mind. <\/p>\n
Sometimes there will be a medium that none of your competitors advertises in.<\/b> <\/p>\n
That medium could be the local television station. It could also be the local church bulletin. The medium could be a radio station or an outdoor sign company, then again, it could be a thirty second video running before the feature attraction at the local Cineplex.<\/p>\n
Assuming a salient message, if a specific targeted audience is exposed to that ad over and over and over, and no competitors bother to respond, a strictly transactional ad could capture the attention of, and be remembered by, relational buyers as well. <\/p>\n
Of course, as soon as competitors start advertising in the same medium, that natural advantage disappears. At that point, more than one solution comes to mind, all shoppers will respond to whichever ad which most closely addresses their needs. <\/p>\n
But to a small advertiser with minimal competition, this strategy of being the only advertiser in a business category using a particular medium, could be worth considering.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s an old folk saying. “Familiarity breeds contempt.” It\u2019s a warning that we can learn too much about each other, and not like what we find. But, what marketer wouldn\u2019t go to excessive lengths to create more and more familiarity with his company? After all, the more a potential customer thinks about a company, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop-my-site.com\/fishing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}