Frequency in Marketing and Media

In our last video, we discussed reach, so it only makes sense that this week we tackle frequency.

Where reach is the number or percentage of people who may be exposed to an ad in general, frequency describes the number of times a member of your target audience is exposed to that ad over the same period.

Let's imagine that we have scheduled our TV spot from the reach video to run three times. Our reach is still 50%, but now with a frequency of 3 over the same timeframe.

Unlike some of our other videos, there's not a lot of calculation required here, and often reach and frequency is provided to you for online buys.

However, just because it isn't complex, doesn't mean that it's not an important part of the marketing planning process. And while many marketers may be familiar with the concept of reach and frequency, they still might not understand what ratio they're looking for.

The best way to determine your ideal reach and frequency is to be clear about the goal of your advertising. If it's awareness, you'll want to focus more on obtaining a broad reach and less about frequency. If you have a limited budget, you may want to reduce your reach and increase your frequency. This will raise the odds that your audience will see and remember your message.

Regardless of your goal, you'll need to tweak your campaign to get the right mix. It's critical to pay close attention to your metrics and prepare to optimize.

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And, as always, if you have a marketing metric that you'd like us to break-down in an upcoming video let us know and it may be our next topic.