How Top Brands (and Advisors) Stay Top of Mind

There’s much going on in our lives. With overwhelming noise, our brains have two ways of deciding without weighing all the information: heuristics and biases. That sounds like a bad thing – making decisions without considering all of the information. But think about it: With the amount of information available to us today, would we ever get around to anything if we had to incorporate every piece of data we could access?

Whether we realize it or not, we largely rely on heuristics and biases to make decisions, often defaulting to things we’re familiar with (familiarity bias) or have interacted with recently (recency bias).

In the book, The New Science of Selling and Persuasion, there are 101 universal sales truths. Number 26 is relevant here and has always stood out to me:

The only certain way to ensure you, your organization or your product are thought of first is through frequent, repetitious contact.

“Frequent” and “repetitious” don’t have to mean you spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on billboards, newspaper ads or digital ads. You could do it for free using email, social media and even quick “check in” phone calls, to name a few.

Repetition: How frequent is frequent enough?

This question has been debated by advertisers for centuries. In 1885, Thomas Smith argued that prospects are ready to buy the 20th time they see an ad. The 1930s dropped that number quite a bit with the creation of the well-known Rule of Seven. Then in the 1970s, Herbert Krugman said three exposures was probably enough.

Of course, the digital age has thrown all these rules out, and now experts say that number may be as high as 77, considering the fact that we are hit with a near-constant barrage of ads on every site on the internet.

The answer for you is between three and 77, but the point is that it takes multiple appearances to get to the top of a prospect or client’s mind, and then it takes more to stay there.

We know repetition works

Repetition helps with memory and recall – if you’re the first that comes to mind, then you’re likely to crowd out competitors in the mind of your prospects.

This is one of the reasons jingles and taglines have helped brands for ages – if you can be catchy and easy to remember, then regardless of whether you’re the right solution or not, you’ll stand out. (Case in point: The best baby back ribs are definitely not at Chili’s, but say “baby back ribs” and you’re bound to hear their classic jingle in your head.)

And we know it can go very wrong

Some people hear “repetitious contact” and think, “Got it. Blast my sales pitch ad nauseum.”

No!

Repetitious contact is about building relationships. To do that, you can’t always ask for something.

Don’t be like your eternally broke “Uncle Eddie,” who only hits you up when he needs to borrow “a couple thou” for his latest get-rich-quick scheme.

Be someone who your prospects/clients are happy to hear from or encounter by offering them something more. Teach them something. Give them something. Make them smile. Make them think.

When people see your brand a lot, it’s easy to start coming off as desperate or needy if you’re always asking them to schedule a consultation or refer their friends and family to you.

Keep the 80/20 rule of content marketing in mind: 80% of your content should educate or entertain and only 20% of it should sell.

Be remembered at the right time

All this repetition is aimed at two specific times when you want your name to be the first thing that comes to people’s minds:

1. When a big life event occurs; and
2. When a friend/family member asks for a referral.

Of course, there are other times, but those are the two instances when prospects or clients are most likely to reach out to advisors. If your audience has heard from you frequently and recently, there’s a very good chance you’ll be top of mind in those situations.

Building positive familiarity

The word “bias” comes with a negative connotation, but it’s not always a bad thing. Your prospects/clients need bias to navigate the noise – including that from competitors out to take your spot.

By maintaining positive familiarity through repetitious contact, you turn their need for heuristic biases to your advantage. With high-quality, consistent, repetitive contact, you train prospective clients to remember that you’re the one for the job.

On the downside, if any of those descriptive elements are missing – high quality, consistent or repetitive – then you run the risk of coming across as needy, pushy, forgettable or just downright annoying.

With all this talk about frequency and repetition, remember that you don’t want to just hit your audience with whatever message you want as often as you want. In fact, the opposite is true. The more you’re in front of an audience, the more important it is that you optimize your messaging before sending it out.

You can either be remembered as a trusted advisor, an annoying “Uncle Eddie,” or not be remembered at all. The key is building the right kind of relationships – and that takes work.

Angel Gonzalez is the chief marketing officer of Snappy Kraken

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