Scope and Frequency: Which variable should be the priority?
When it comes to delivering the best possible results from a campaign, especially a branding one, with a certain budget, you must define two very important variables: exposure or optimal reach and frequency. However, you may have realized that when determining your audience there are many options, possibilities and opinions regarding what is the best way to go, so you will ask yourself, how do you know if you have the correct strategy?
Definition of Scope and Frequency
Reach is the number of potential customers who have been exposed to a message through a given medium. This metric shows the number of unique users who see or hear the ad for a campaign.
Frequency refers to the number of times these users are exposed to that message.
In this way, the higher the reach, the greater the number of people who see a message. Likewise, the higher the frequency, the greater the number of times that a single user is hit with that message. These two metrics are inversely related since increasing the frequency reduces the range and increasing the range decreases the frequency. This is mainly based on the investment since there are a limited number of ads or impacts that are obtained from a certain budget. In this sense, the ideal is to balance the variables depending on the result that you are trying to obtain and take into account that the main objective of any campaign is an optimal exposure.
The two ways
There is a commonly used stance in marketing that says you should plan for your message to be viewed at least 3 times. However, this metric can vary according to a wide variety of factors.
This industry convention attempts to prioritize frequency over scope. The belief is that without repetition in the delivery of a message, it is not possible to develop the relationship with the client or the brand awareness necessary for the user to take an action.
On the other hand, many advertisers are turning to the belief that as with traditional sales, the greater the number of users contacted, the greater the number of conversions. However, even though this practice works in the offline world, it is not used at all in digital media.
This means that some advertisers prioritize reach over frequency. However, maximizing reach is a difficult strategy to implement as it requires a greater effort of planning and categorizing audiences. Determining the target audience is key, so a good initial question is: Who within your target are the most likely to consume more? At this point reviewing your metrics is very important since from there you will obtain the necessary information to adjust your audiences.
Both reach and frequency are just one part of the complex and gigantic marketing puzzle, so I recommend that you consider other key factors before deciding which path to take.
What strategy to use?
While in traditional sales, the greater the scope of the higher conversions, in long conversion cycles a single hit (call or visit) is not enough to make a conversion. The same is true in digital media, so in these cases a strategy that focuses on frequency and consumer journey at each stage of the conversion funnel may be better.
In the other sense, when the sales cycle is short and the user can easily determine whether or not they are interested in an offer, a strategy based on reach may work better. This means that if a user sees an ad for the first time and is really interested, they will click and convert, so in this sense it is not necessary to hit them again with the same message.
However, and based on the above, it is not the same to impact a user who does not know your brand 3 times, than one who already knows it and has even bought your products. For this reason, it is not enough just to define the scope or frequency of a message. It is also necessary to define what messages you will give to a certain group of prospects, based on their stage in the conversion funnel.
In conclusion, there is no black or white when defining the strategy of a campaign. What we can know is that depending on the level of importance that a purchase requires for the consumer, one strategy or another may work better, always in terms of optimizing the budget and achieving the highest number of conversions.
Tell me in what type of business you are trying to implement a campaign and what type of strategy you want to develop. Remember that depending on the stage a certain audience is in, you will have different communication objectives, so I recommend that you start by defining who you want to talk to and then decide if the scope or frequency is what is best for you. to get results.
