For those of us who began our careers before the rise of digital media, GRP was the benchmark to which all media and message dissemination were held. GRP stands for gross rating points. A gross rating point was computed by combining reach (the percentage of the target audience you reached) and frequency (the number of times your message was seen by everyone in your target audience). As an example, if you wanted to reach 50% of your target audience five times, you would need to generate or acquire 250 GRPs. If you wanted to reach 70% of your target audience merely three times, you needed 210 GRPs.

Today, all measurements begin with impressions, and GRPs are no longer utilized as a measuring tool, but the philosophy behind them remains timeless, and highly relevant to today’s planning situations. Here’s what I mean.

Let us start with reach. The concept here is simple. How much of your target audience do you need to reach for your campaign to be deemed successful? Do you need to get to 20%, 40%, or 70%? Keep in mind, this is not how many people you need to convert into viable leads, but how many you need to be able to reach to be able to get to the number of conversions. So, if you need 100 conversions and your conversion rate is 10%, then you need to reach a bare minimum of 1,000 in your target audience.

The reality is that number should be much higher because you have to account for individuals who are not in the consideration set at the time and those who are not reachable via the media vehicle you are using. Not everyone is shopping for shoes today, and not everyone who is shopping for shoes can be found via Google Search or just on one or two social media platforms. And, given how fragmented digital and social media are today, even if you spend a lot of money on Facebook or Instagram, you will only reach a portion of the entire audience. Is there a way to figure out the right reach for a campaign? Yes, and you probably have most of the inputs you need already.

The second number represents frequency. This is the number of times an individual needs to see your message before converting and beginning the sales process. Many organizations will base their decisions on the buying cycle. For example, home coffee brewers purchase ground coffee twice a month. The thought is they need to be exposed to your message at least twice—once for each purchase occasion. Something to keep in mind, though, is this only represents the number of times they need to see your ad or post outside the store. You also need to factor in promotional activity and in-store actions, such as shelf and display presence. Worth noting, of course, is if they are brand loyal, that should suffice; if not, and you want to convert those who are loyal to your competitor, the frequency and exposure to your message needs to be more—like to the tune of 50% more. How do you find the right frequency? Include frequency testing in every plan you develop to discover the magic number. This means aligning media stats with sales reports and having test cells in place to be able to see the difference. It sounds hard, but it really isn’t.

So, you now know how many individuals you want to reach in terms of percentage of your target group and how many messages you need to send them before they decide to work with you. Now you must take these objectives and identify the appropriate media for them. There are a few things to note.

1.       Sight, sound, and motion improve responsiveness.

Not all ad units behave similarly. Logically, an ad on a 65″ OLED TV has a greater impact than an ad on your cell phone. So do not assume that an impression on social media has the same weight as one on mainstream television. Plus, streaming, cable, and traditional network TV have one advantage over digital media—they are intrusive. While they can, most people don’t fast forward through ads as much as they swipe past social media posts.

2.       Reach and frequency effectiveness require time to build.

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. Even if you have a large budget, it takes time for all your messages and ads to get served. In most cases, you might start to see peak reach around two weeks into a campaign, but realistically you reach much of your target reach by weeks three and four. And as for frequency, yes, those that consume a particular media heavily will see a post or ad with greater frequency sooner than the average or low users. But again, those average to low users are extremely important, and you don’t want to shortchange them. So, like reach, frequency takes time to build.

3.       An integrated campaign is more likely to help you reach your goals than using only a handful of media options. There are two reasons:

No media vehicle can reach your whole target audience. (For those of you who will lift your phone and exclaim, “Everyone is on their phone, duh.” Yes, but that does not imply that everyone uses it in the same manner or has the same feeds. So, if you want to reach more of your audience, you will need multiple media vehicles. Consider each media vehicle a pearl, with the purpose of stringing enough of them together to make the impression you want.

Each media vehicle has unique strengths. For example, audio, whether broadcast radio or streaming, is a frequency medium. Audiences are small but loyal. Radio and audio streaming will allow you to deliver your message to them multiple times. Network television can be a more effective reach medium if the programming is geared for a broad audience.

So, to summarize. When creating your communication strategies, keep in mind how many individuals you need to reach out to and interact with, as well as how many times you need to message them to receive the desired reaction. You do not want to fall short of your goals because you did not reach out to enough people or communicate with them frequently enough. Keep in mind that not every product or service you promote will require the same level of reach and frequency. As always, rigorous analysis will guide you in the proper direction. Accurately documenting outcomes and incorporating them into your planning process, as well as consistently testing for reach and frequency, will maximize the success of your efforts.

Since many of us are being forced to make cuts in staffing and resource access, this blog specifically addresses how to manage your marketing and communication department activities with more limited resources. Ultimately, the goal should not only be about reducing headcounts and dividing up tasks but seen as an opportunity to rethink how to move forward, setting a marketing and communications department up for growth and eventual prosperity.

So, let me get started. I believe there are six strategic areas that every marketing communications department should touch in some fashion. They are: Brand Strategy, Paid Outreach, Customer Interactions/ecommerce, Earned media, Partnerships and Technology Transformation.

Brand Strategy is something you should always be mindful of; it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be working on it every day, but it is your true north; it is the direction in which you are moving; it impacts everything that you do from a marketing and communications standpoint; it needs to be reviewed, assessed, and updated on a regular basis; and it encapsulates your values. Without a strong brand strategy, you are moving forward without a rudder.

Paid Outreach includes all the efforts where you pay to push out your communications – through traditional media, digital media and social media (yes, boosting your post is paid outreach, not earned).  Its major goal is to raise awareness among all those important audiences you don’t necessarily reach through your current efforts. Paid Outreach expands your universe and gets you in front of people who don’t get exposure to you.  Regardless all your other efforts it’s the quickest and most efficient way to reach people.

Customer Communication and Ecommerce.  I put this as third since these are your most dedicated fans, and they deserve a good portion of your time. Some products and services have relatively short repurchase cycles, while others take much longer, but regardless, all your past customers are truly your best future, and if you’re in a relationship-oriented business, as most nonprofits are, it behooves you to stay in touch with these folks.

Earned Media involves both media relations and social media. It takes a lot of effort, more than most people who aren’t doing it realize. And I’ve seen many businesses that become too reliant on it and overdo it. Sure, you produce impressions without out-of-pocket costs, but it takes a significant amount of effort to create innovative content and generate many interactions. That is wonderful, but social media must be tempered. I am not a Luddite — I believe in social media and media relations, and I think that if you have a massive budget and you can go out and connect with influencers and get paid placements, then it’s worthwhile. But most organizations don’t have a massive budget.

Partnerships, on the other hand, are an area in which people under-resource. Every organization has partners, whether for commercial or mutual alliance goals. Especially at this time, there are numerous opportunities to collaborate with partners, whether it’s working together and sharing resources, taking advantage of something they do that you don’t do well, offering them something they can’t do and thus gaining some credit among their audience, or finding some overlaps among allied businesses. Partnerships are probably the one area that people should focus on right now. I can give you 1,000 lovely little phrases about how we flourish together and divided we fall, but I’ll spare you. The point is that your partners can be a huge asset to you now and it is a marketing and communications opportunity area everyone should be looking into with more intentionality.

The final one is, for lack of a better description, technological transformation. And this isn’t just about pushing you to use generative AI. It’s basically about going back and looking at every aspect of your marketing department to see how you can function more effectively. (Note that I did not say cheaper, but more effectively). It is about increasing your use of virtual meetings and automated tools. It is about pulling more out of your data that is inherent in your existing reporting, whether it’s more in-depth analysis of your CRM, using the other features in your reporting software, doing a sentiment analysis on your social media posts, testing content and comms distribution channels. I promise you, you can make your department run more effectively if you are more intentional about using the technology that already exists in your organization. 

It goes without saying that you can’t do all these at the same time and it’s unlikely that you’re going to get to all of them over the course of the next year. What you need to do is to go back and prioritize. And don’t prioritize based on what you’re doing right now, but what will help your top line. I think for starters Brand Strategy is obviously important, but Customer Communications is vital. And then, squeezing more out of Partnership opportunities – it is low hanging fruit.  If budgets allow, increase Paid Outreach. It’s worth noting, as your competitors cut back on Paid Outreach you can increase your presence and share-of-voice.  If you want to go ahead put time and effort into Earned Media go for it but just note it’s not the end all or be all especially when your challenges require that you find ways to grow.

Last month’s blog on the difference between a business plan and business strategy generated a lot of great comments and feedback. The most popular asked how exactly does one go about creating a distinctive strategy, especially in a competitive market. That’s a question that every organization – from private to public, profit to non-profit – should address. So here’s our perspective on how to move forward.

The first step is to acknowledge that nothing ever stays the same, and to actively lean into the changes. Over the course of a reasonable period of time, the market shifts, consumer preferences shift, competition shifts and then internally, your organization may have gone through some changes as well. So, as much as it seems everything is the same, assume it isn’t, and then start looking for the changes. To come up with new and relevant strategy, you need to shift your perspective. You can’t attack the problem the same way as before, otherwise you’re going to end up pretty much where you are now.

So, how do you do that? Here are three suggestions:

1.       Introduce new input. The goal is to come up with insights that are new and different, and were not factors in the previous iteration of the strategic planning process. This means either investing in research or going beyond the usual analysis. You know you are on the right track when you have “eureka moments” — when you see something that you know you can’t ignore. For example, start with an objective analysis of your ecosystem, which includes your competitors, your partners and of course your customer and client base. Take a look at new trends and what products and services your market is adopting. 

2.       Bring new people into the process. These folks don’t necessarily have to be outside of the organization, they may be folks who don’t usually sit in on these types of meetings.  There is a rule though: whomever you bring in needs to be imaginative and willing to express their opinions. This is about adding fresh thinking to the mix; bringing in people who will process the information differently. Now, if there isn’t anyone internally that fits that description, then find someone external to the organization. It could be someone who’s works in a different industry or market and has had experience coming up with strategies.

3.       Change the question. We like to start every planning session with a question we want to have answered by the end of the planning process. The question isn’t necessarily an objective, like “How do we increase market share?”  But it might be more like, “how do we make ourselves essential to our customers and clients?” Or, “how do we make sure our graduates pursue meaningful, life-fulfilling careers?” Or, “how can our services revitalize our community?” Don’t be afraid to ask a big question. As a matter of fact, the bigger the better because it will force you to reach for big answers and not be satisfied with crumbs.

Strategy and strategic thinking are terms that have lost much of their meaning because they are applied to just about any form of planning or thinking. So, don’t let yourself get fooled into thinking that because the meeting is a “strategic planning meeting” that’s what is really going to happen. Whatever it’s called, a real, successful strategy planning process is a heavy lift intended to point the whole organization toward new and different (and hopefully) more fertile shores. If you end up where you are now, you missed the opportunity.