Strategy
Multi-touchpoint, or: why one advert is never enough
Nobody buys from a business they have heard of once. They buy from the business they have heard of repeatedly, in more than one place, over a period long enough to have formed an opinion.
The commonest way to waste a marketing budget is to spend it all in one place, once. A business takes a full page, gets four enquiries, decides print does not work, and never books again. The advert was fine. The strategy was a coin toss.
For that single placement to produce a customer, the reader has to be in the market for what you sell, in the mood to do something about it, and holding the magazine — all in the same week. That is three coincidences. Most of your future customers were not in the market that week, which is not a failure of the advert. It is arithmetic.
What changes the arithmetic is showing up again. Not louder, not bigger — again, and somewhere slightly different. A printed page that sits on a desk. A listing that is there when they finally go looking. An email between issues. A face at an event. A piece of writing that shows you know the subject.
None of those is strong on its own. Together they change what happens when the need finally arrives: instead of searching, the reader already has a name.
The sequence
Six touches, in the order they usually land
- 01
They see the magazine
A printed issue lands, gets left on a desk, and gets picked up again. Print is slow, which is exactly why it sticks.
- 02
They find you in the directory
When they go looking for your category later, your listing is there — with the advert they half-remember attached to it.
- 03
They read you in the newsletter
Monthly email keeps your name in front of the same readership between issues.
- 04
They meet you at an event
Speed networking, an expo stand or a speaking slot turns a name on a page into a person they have shaken hands with.
- 05
They read your editorial
A feature or interview does something no advert can: it demonstrates that you actually know what you are talking about.
- 06
They buy — and tell someone
By this point they are not choosing between you and a stranger. They are choosing the business they already know.
What this means for your budget
If you have enough for one full page, buy a quarter page four times instead. Four smaller appearances across four issues beat one large appearance in one issue, more or less every time, and it is not close.
What it means for patience
Touches two and three usually look like nothing is happening. That is the part where most businesses stop, which is also why the ones that do not stop end up with a category more or less to themselves.