How much is too much? I find myself asking that question often -- especially in the world of digital media. I also find it an interesting question for other categories of business, and
I always come up with the same answer: Too much of a good thing is, simply, still too much.
Frequency comes up most often in the context of display advertising, where reach and frequency are
common terms applied to how media budgets are reviewed. A media plan is examined to see how deep into the audience it can go, which is reach. It is then analyzed to see how often that
audience will see your ad, which is frequency.
Frequency comes up in video advertising a lot lately. The same ad can run during video streaming seven, eight or nine times in one sitting.
The effect is detrimental -- the audience is annoyed and wants to stop seeing your ads. In display, a high frequency creates ad blindness, which is when the audience literally blocks out the
chance to see your ad because they are tired of it. In both cases, frequency is bad.
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But what about in other instances across other categories?
I am a music nerd who Ioves
U2. When I decided to listen to their most recent record on Spotify, I was surprised to see a slew of re-releases of old singles and records with deluxe this or that. I love U2, but that
was overkill. Too many releases were swamping the channel.
It’s like some of the hip-hop artists of the decade, who drop record after record on top of one another and
don’t give room for any release to breathe. For the longest time that was Drake, until he lost an infamous rap battle.
Then there's Ryan Adams, known for releasing records in bunches.
But as a fan of his music, I found that too much music getting released too frequently made it difficult to settle in and get to know any of it.
So too much of a good thing is, apparently, too
much.
The worst offender of this theory is still email -- retail email specifically. I recently was told to check out a brand of hats, which shall remain nameless. I liked them and
bought three hats from them. I then became overwhelmed by two emails per day until I unsubscribed. Their emails were delivering coupons and new hat releases. I hadn’t
even received the hats I purchased yet (I still haven’t) and here they are trying to convince me to buy more hats. It is an unrealistic expectation -- desperate and mildly
offensive.
Email is good for creating a relationship, not for treating the customer as a cash register. I will likely never buy another hat from this company because the
experience has been so poor. They clearly need me to buy more, judging by their desperation emails.
When used in a strategic fashion, frequency is a way to build a relationship, but it needs
to be modulated with careful timing -- not just an all-out “shock and awe” campaign to bludgeon the consumer into submission.
I doubt the marketers responsible for these campaigns
intended to cram my inbox every 12 hours with desperate pleas for purchase, but that is exactly what happened. I know the data: Retailers see a jump in sales when they email the customer.
Sure, but the data also speaks of wearout. In that analysis, frequency and length between touches are important metrics to consider. Unfortunately, neither those marketers, Drake, or even U2 are
considering this key element.
So, going forward, give the consumer a chance to breathe, would you? Please, let your message have some time before you bang us over the head and make a
desperate cry for sales. You will see this strategy work out better in the long run.