Working with a company recently, the Marketing Manager said to me “We tried an awareness raising campaign, it didn’t work”.  I asked her exactly what it was they had tried; she told me they had crafted an email full of useful tips on how to get the best out of their product and had sent it out to their customer base but had seen virtually no increase in usage at all.  I asked what else she had done, and she told me that was it.  Just the one email.

This made me think of a learning programme called Super-Memo.  It was developed by a Polish researcher called Piotr Wozniak and is based on the premise that the more often you are reminded of a word, number or fact, the longer you will remember it.  An example would be to imagine you’ve just got a new mobile with a new number which you’ve had to learn.  Without regularly saying that number over time it will become increasingly difficult to remember.  In order to remember something the ideal points at which to refresh your memory are after one day, ten days, thirty days and then sixty days.

So why not do the same with your marketing?  A single e-shot is unlikely to be successful and, in many cases, may not even be opened.  But a sustained awareness campaign sent over the course of several weeks will start to make your company and your products feel more familiar and therefore more memorable for the customer.   Which means when your customer needs the type of product or service you offer, you company will be the one that springs to mind.