By Mike Schaffman, Simplicity Lone Beacon’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
Buzzwords are used in every industry to attempt to signal technical knowledge on a subject or topic, some of which are overused and misused, thus losing their meaning and earning them the name “buzzword.” However, in the marketing world, there are three buzzwords you should take note of and understand, as they have a crucial impact on your marketing and sales success.
No matter what your marketing campaign is or what your medium for delivery will be, you’ll want to live by these three marketing buzzwords: Reach refers to how many unique people will see your marketing material. Frequency is how many times those people see it. Impressions are the total views on it. Of course, there are other important metrics to follow such as leads, appointments booked and kept, and closed business which are all critical to improving your bottom-line revenue growth… but you must start somewhere, right?
Your customer’s journey is deeply rooted in, and measured by, reach, frequency, and impressions. That’s why they are the buzzwords to focus on every time you strategize for a new campaign or update an existing one. I’m sure you have current campaigns running with clearly defined goals and objectives, but if you’re only looking at closed business, you may be missing out on key data patterns that can ultimately be used to improve the end results you desire. In Simplicity Lone Beacon’s recent TCJ (The Customer Journey) Episode, Effective Messaging and Campaigns Have “This” in Common, we discuss buying behaviors and how content messaging relates to the emotional and intellectual side of the customer. For our advisor marketing content, our secret formula is 75% emotional and 25% intellectual. What this means is that you need to have an appropriate balance between your content being consumed by clients and prospects, and remember, this content will forever be tied to reach, frequency, and impressions.
There are a variety of ways to generate reach in your marketing and advertising. Traditional broadcast via radio and television is one way, along with database email marketing and SMS text. One of the most common ways to accomplish your delivery of content is with digital ad buying through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google. Director of Digital Media, Craig Foster, recently published a piece where he states that “you can amplify the reach of your content” through boosted posts. Plus, Craig talks more about how boosted posts are the key to improving your lead-generation campaigns. This is a perfect example of how revenue-generating metrics are tied to the three marketing buzzwords. We won’t get into it here, but make sure that you have the proper avatars in place for your target audiences across these mediums to allow you to reach the right people.
Now that you’re reaching the right people and starting to measure your data, it’s time to think about proper frequency. Audience and campaign fatigue are two commonly heard but often misunderstood and overlooked phrases in the marketing world. One of the simplest ways to reduce fatigue is not a quantitative metric but rather a qualitative one. The brand message for your firm must be authentic and it’s important to understand that your corporate brand runs through your personal brand. When it comes to your financial advisory business, you understand that your potential clients are choosing someone to manage their livelihood now and for the future and is one of the most crucial buying decisions of their lives. It can take several exposures to you, your content, campaigns, and company for someone to be receptive to your brand, and many more for someone to ultimately be driven to a purchasing decision. If you’re not creating trust and building confidence with quality content, then a high frequency will be counterproductive, as you’ll essentially fatigue them right out of the gates.
As you progress to the impressions side of the equation, this is where you get closer and closer to aligning with your KPIs and revenue goals. The definition of the law of diminishing returns is a principle stating that profits or benefits gained from something will represent a proportionally smaller gain as more money or energy is invested in it. So, your goal is to accomplish the exact opposite, where you strategize and use data to properly deliver an appropriate number of impressions to then “double down” on effective campaigns with efficient spending. You can think about your marketing and advertising impressions alongside this important principle as you strive to deliver opportunities for your target audience to view your messaging and ultimately convert on your campaigns.
No matter what marketing efforts you’re currently running or launching in the future, it’s crucial that you live by these three marketing buzzwords, obtain the necessary data points, and act on that data to make incremental improvements. Your bottom-line revenue will thank you for it.
About the Author: Mike Schaffman joined Simplicity Lone Beacon in 2015, pioneering their core marketing platform, creating content and connecting media and broadcast components with a turnkey digital solution. Mike helped transform Simplicity Lone Beacon’s offerings and solutions into one of the leading independent financial advisor marketing services in the country today. When he’s not in the office, Mike enjoys playing golf and hockey and likes to experiment in the kitchen.
