The Timing of Your Marketing Matters

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “the only difference between salad and garbage is timing.”

If you take a moment to think about it as it relates to the timing of your marketing efforts, it illustrates a fairly obvious picture.

Much like how a crispy, fresh salad will turn into wilted, soggy compost material, the timing of your marketing has a major impact on your final results, and high impact marketers consternate over timing just as much as their headline copy, offer details, media used, etc. Tip #7 in my High Impact Marketing Manifesto focused on the importance of timing.

A recent marketing campaign I received, from the car manufacturer Infiniti, triggered this article and hopefully an important reminder to you.

So a few weeks back I received a self-mailer from Infiniti, targeted to customers, with the collection of customer-appreciation offers and discounts. Overall a smart and relevant “come-back” offer, but nothing extraordinary…

… until literally a few minutes later I happened to check my Facebook feed and there was the same exact imagery, copy and offer on my computer screen.

Talk about a keen sense of timing!

I don’t think this was intentional or by design (if somebody knows otherwise, leave a comment below), and I think it was pure coincidence that I happened to check Facebook within minutes of getting the mailer.

I get the whole Facebook re-targeting pixel thing, which is not the point I am trying to make here.  Instead, it’s the fact that I got something in the mail and literally minutes later, saw the same campaign online. Pretty cool!

I categorize the timing of marketing in two broad categories – external timing opportunities and internal timing opportunities.

External timing opportunities are typically event-based and include things like:

• Holiday marketing
• Current event marketing
• Birthdays, anniversaries, new mover, etc.

Internal timing opportunities are typically things you can and should control like:

• What time emails are sent
• If sending direct mail, when will it arrive (and what type of postage to use to ensure timely delivery)
• When people visit your place of business, how are they treated, when are offers made, etc.

Having a clear understanding of your target market, their behaviors and preferences is essential for knowing the best, current answers to these questions.

Another good example of timing a marketing campaign (this time 100% intentional) comes from Jim Edholm, of Business Benefits Insurance, in Massachusetts.

Jim and his team are small business group insurance specialists and he’s the classic example of a High Impact Marketer. Jim schedules his marketing campaigns around the time when the target company’s insurance is about to renew. He sends out a multi-step direct mail campaign and with this careful timing, the recipients are opening his mail just at the time when they were thinking about their insurance renewal.

This perfect combination of timing and pressing certain emotional hot-buttons in his mailings result in a higher than average response and conversion rate for Jim – much higher than if he simply sent out his campaign at random times without concern for timing.

So hopefully I’ve gotten you to think about the timing of your marketing and how it matters for better response and better results. If you have any stories, tips or ideas about marketing timing, leave them below!