Frequency Illusion In Marketing

[Frequency Illusion] The Baarder-Meinhof Phenomenon

→ What is frequency Illusion?

→ Why you see the same thing often.

The frequency illusion (also known as the Baarder-Meinhof Phenomenon) happens when you see or hear about something for the first time, It can be a song or a fashion trend, or anything else and suddenly after a short period of time, you start seeing it everywhere in your everyday life.

Sometimes you might see it so often that you even start wondering if there is some sort of conspiracy going on or sometimes make you feel like you're being haunted.

It's just a common occurance or coincidence.

It works well with confirmation bias and social proof to make something stick in people's minds.

Let's Look At This Situation:

Imagine this—Your on the streets walking. from work(so exhausted), your heading back home and suddenly as usual, you approach this store in the middle of the town.

Your minds tell you to grab a snack and you decide to do so. Just as you enter into the store, you notice something unusual. It's a book and your seeing it for the first time! 

But because you came for a quick snack, you may give the book less attention or even show no sign of interest though it's your first time seeing it. You get and pay for what you came for, then walk out of the store to head back home. (your back on the streets)

A few minutes later while walking, you spot out someone on the street holding a book similar with the one you left in the store. 

The same thing happens again and again.

By the time you reach home, surprisingly realize you approached more than 20 people with the same book. It just gets crazy, right?

But you move on, anyway.

A few days later, you start noticing that same book in your everyday life, whenever you go back to that store, your more likely to spot it out and the more you become familiar with it.

You then start seeing it in Ads on screens, billboards, media posts, Emails, promotions and also notice that most of your friends both at home and work read that same book.

You unintentionally start picking interest in that book, sooner or later, you find yourself buying that book. That's how your influenced.

This is called frequency illusion. Also known as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.

On The Bright Side. 

Alot of Brands use this phenomenon for marketing purposes. The more people are aware and interested in something, the more likely they will want to own it.

That's why certain Ads frequently keep on showing up in your social media feeds. Every marketing guru dreams of going viral on the internet.

When people see something appear quite frequently, it can convince them to believe that it’s more popular or maybe it's setting a new trend and lots of people are buying it.

It's a psycologic technique Brands use in their marketing campaigns to get into the minds of people making their product or services part of people's daily lifestyle so that it gets noticed.

So, Now That You've Understood How This Phenomenon Works, Here’s How You Can Use It To Your Advantage In Order To Boost Your Marketing.

The more you make people notice your product or service in their daily lifestyle, the more they will be gaining interest in it.

When consumers gain interest in a product, they devolop a mental energy of owning it. 

With this in mind, to make a significant impact in your marketing campaigns, you should expose your audience to your product or service through multiple different channels, repeatedly and consistently

First of all, you need to make your potential customers aware of your product. By using multiple, targeted channels and exposing them to your marketing message more than once on a daily basis.

Using distinctive headlines and vibrant images is so crucial and important. Videos are very powerful on lots of different channels especially on the internet. 

When Frequency-illusioned people are not actually interested in your offer, they can recommend you to a friend who’s looking for products or services similar to yours.

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