2014 Prospecting – Never Run Just One Ad
Thomas Smith a nineteenth-century London businessman offered the following advice to advertisers in 1885. It is still applicable today:
- The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
- The second time, they don’t notice it.
- The third time, they are aware that it is there.
- The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they have seen it before.
- The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
- The sixth time, they thumb their nose at it.
- The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
- The eighth time, they start to think “Here’s the confounded ad again”.
- The ninth time, they start to wonder if they may be missing out on something.
- The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
- The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all of these ads.
- The twelfth time, they start to think it must be a good product.
- The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
- The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like it for a really long time.
- The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
- The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
- The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
- The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
- The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
- The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what it is offering.
The moral of this Cup o’ Joe: Advertising only works with “Spaced Repetition”