What is the Best Marketing Tool?

Sports Illustrated A good marketing campaign includes reach, frequency and awareness. A great campaign would have a branding image installed in:

100% of all businesses.

Viewed by each office worker five times a day.

Five days a week.

50 weeks per year.

What gives a business that measure of exposure? A $100K billboard? Permission-based email blast with girlie content?

Nope. You have one on your wall now.

A calendar. Low tech. Dates on a grid. Paper on a nail. Common as paper clips.

You have a PDA down in your pocket. But there’s a calendar at eye level.

Lots of them.

If you are at work in a cubicle, you have an average of 2.5 each. At home you have four calendars.

Smart marketers understand that a calendar tells a story. Like a business card. And that calendars can be a business card on a wall.

Joe Bunsness from Triumph Calendars, Norwood Promotional Products reminds us that the research is compelling:

86% of people remember what the message is on the calendar or who gave them the calendar.

83% of organizations purchase the products of the business who supplied the calendar.

70% of what is heard is forgotten, but…

80% of what is seen, is retained.

What is experienced for 30 days becomes a habit.

The lowly calendar as

marketing vehicleSo send out 100 calendars with your logo and contact info. What happens? And how do we know?

Running the numbers down a funnel is easy. Research has also provided some predictability in what happens next:

Assume a cost of $3.00 per calendar. For every 100 calendars sent to a client:

An estimated 50% of the calendars will be hung up on the end-users’ wall.

A calendar is viewed five times per day per person.

A calendar is viewed by 1.5 persons per day.

A calendar is hung in an office open 5 days per week,

50 weeks per year.

I’ll the math, if you don’t mind.

100 X .5 X 5 X 1.5 X 5 X 50 = 93,750

If you would allow me a +/- 10% variance, the campaign could have 100,000 impressions for $300. (Marketers always round up.) Or .003 cents per impression. Cost would be a penny for three viewings. Cheap eyeballs.

At least compared to Super Bowls ad rates. $2.4 million / 86.8 million viewers. Nets to .03 cents per viewer.

So calendars are 10 times better than a Super Bowl ad. Even if you had a 7 figure ad budget.

Calendars can help your clients memorize your message. One day at a time.

Calendars, the

perfect marketing toolWas this helpful? Do comment.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Full Disclosure: Your Business Blogger owns a calendar company and has a patent pending for a particular market segment. Unfortunately this is not a sales pitch. My calendars are not for sale to the general public. But you should still consider calendars as a marketing tool.