I have had many helping and healing professionals tell me they have used advertising without success. Their lack of success is frequently due to having unrealistic expectations. They don’t understand how often a person must see an ad before they are likely to take any action on it. If you want your investment in advertising to pay off you have to make the commitment to run it over time (at least 6 months -1 year+) if you don’t want to waste your hard earned cash.
The Diva Marketing Blog has a humorous post on the need for repetition when advertising. She refers to a piece that was written in 1885 by Thomas Smith:
1. The first time a man looks at an advertisement, he does not see it.
2. The second time, he does not notice it.
3. The third time, he is conscious of its existence.
4. The fourth time, he faintly remembers having seen it before.
5. The fifth time, he reads it.
6. The sixth time, he turns up his nose at it.
7. The seventh time, he reads it through and says, “Oh brother!”
8. The eighth time, he says, “Here’s that confounded thing again!”
9. The ninth time, he wonders if it amounts to anything.
10. The tenth time, he asks his neighbor if he has tried it.
11. The eleventh time, he wonders how the advertiser makes it pay.
12. The twelfth time, he thinks it must be a good thing.
13. The thirteenth time, he thinks perhaps it might be worth something.
14. The fourteenth time, he remembers wanting such a thing a long time.
15. The fifteenth time, he is tantalized because he cannot afford to buy it.
16. The sixteenth time, he thinks he will buy it some day.
17. The seventeenth time, he makes a memorandum to buy it.
18. The eighteenth time, he swears at his poverty.
19. The nineteenth time, he counts his money carefully.
20. The twentieth time he sees the ad, he buys what it is offering.
The Diva notes that she heard this from Eric Hope of Language Services Assoc.
Read: To Advertise or Not To Advertise: How Do You Decide? if your unsure about whether you should use advertising to market your private practice.
