How Soon They Forget

By Glen Gardner
Z102.9 and 1600 ESPN Branding Consultant
How soon they forget. In the marketing world it's a phrase we should
never forget. It gets played out in the real world each day and it's the
greatest enemy of your business maintaining any kind of mind-share. The
good news is, it's easy to solve. The bad news is, it takes resource.

A great example would be the political circus that recently played out
at the GOP Straw Poll in Ames. Michele Bachmann came screaming out of
the Ames event after a good showing and tons of media coverage. Seems
like you couldn't turn on a radio, TV or view a website without seeing
something about her. Just several weeks later it's "Michele who?"

Rick Perry jumped in the race and he grabbed the spotlight, but now just
a few weeks later he is dropping like a stone in the polls. The public
has a very short memory and needs constant reminding that you are there,
or they WILL forget.

It's not by accident that when a political candidate runs out of
resources, the campaign is over. They know that without constant
messaging to remind the public they are there, it's over and they are
out of business. Ask Tim Pawlenty.

So what is the lesson here for your business or service? You constantly
need to remind your potential and current customers that you are there,
or they will forget about you. The roadside is littered with defunct
businesses that assumed everyone knew they were there. I wish I had a
buck for every time someone said to me, "We don't need to advertise,
we've been here so long we don't need to." Or, "We are just going to
take a break for a while, we've done so much in the past it will carry
us." Both statements are prescriptions for disaster.

Be consistent with whatever budget you have and remember, they are
programmed to forget about you.