What Does Reach Mean in Advertising and Marketing?

If I were to ask a dozen people what REACH means, I am sure I would get at least 4 or 5 different answers, all depending on each persons life experience.

You take the basketball player and they know that reach is important in being able to grab a loose ball and that if you have longer arms than your opponent, you have a better shot at getting the ball because you have greater reach.

But in the advertising and marketing world, reach has a different application.

Reach often refers to the size of the audience that you can reach for the dollars you spend.

I was reading one of Seth Godin’s daily blog updates recently and he inspired me today.

Seth said:

Reach is overrated

It might be the biggest misconception in all of advertising.

The Super Bowl has reach.

Google has reach.

Radio has reach.

So?

Why do you care if you can, for more money, reach more people?

Why wouldn’t it make more sense to reach the right people instead?

Seth continues his article with some valid points and wraps it up with this question:

Perhaps it makes sense to pay extra to reach precisely the right people. It never makes sense to pay extra to reach more people.

So I mostly agree with what Seth says, but there are a few items he leaves out.

Both Reach and the Right People are important.

It’s not a pick one and only one choice.

It is really important to make sure the Right People are reached by your advertising and marketing messages.

I started a conversation with a gentleman named Kyle who started a company that converts old video tapes into digital media.  He can put your old videos that are currently stored on a video tape on a flash drive, a DVD, or store it in the cloud.  Initially he contacted me because he listens to our rock radio station, The Bear and thought that would be a great place to advertise.

However as I heard his story and what he needs to do, the rock station, The Bear is not filled with the Right People.  They may have a great reach of over 50,000 weekly listeners, but considering their age, it’s not the best place to find radio listeners that have old video tapes to convert.

So I am going to offer as the best option, another of out radio stations, WOWO.  WOWO is a news talk radio station with the majority of our listeners age 50 and older.  I will also offer a campaign on our ESPN Sports station targeted to parents and coaches that have videos of family and players that need to be preserved.

Granted WOWO overall has a greater reach with over 100,000 weekly listeners but we are only going to focus our ads on a smaller percentage of them and not try and reach everyone.  I can create an ad campaign that scales for the right audience and the right number of people to make it both affordable and profitable.

What about using the internet?  Maybe.  That is where we are going to send our radio listeners, to their website.  But attempting to use online ads is a gamble.  I’ve seen only a couple of business people do it successfully this year and with my insider knowledge, I’ve even backed away from recommending many of the online options.

Bottom line is that you need to reach the right people who want what you have to sell, and do it in a manner and with a message that is profitable.

Reaching a lot of people who aren’t really your potential customers isn’t usually a good idea.

Reaching a lot of people but with not enough frequency is also not a good idea, but I’ll save that topic for another day.

Want my help?  Let’s talk. Drop me a note. Scott@WOWO.com is my email.

You can also get my free media and marketing tips email by signing up for Sound ADvice on my website at Scott Howard.me

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