As any fule kno, George Orwell wrote “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket”.
What he didn’t say is how many times you have to rattle the bucket. If the pigs have a healthy appetite, reasonable hearing, and are not too occupied doing something else, one rattle should be enough.
But – surprise! Advertising to people is slightly more complicated.
Very occasionally a single advertisement will do the job. But mostly (humans having more distractions than the average porker) you need to arrange several advertising impacts before you achieve the required result. Hence the wonderful world of the response function – which essentially reflects when and how many times you need to communicate the message.
So we were technically impressed by Argyll Atkin’s recent countdown to their excellent stamp auction on the 4th March. They arranged a steady feed of emails as the auction date approached – 7 days to go, 3 days, 48 hours etc.
OK, many would say that the daily inbox is already sufficiently cluttered, and a profusion of repetitive mailshots is irritating.
But if the information is well-timed, well-presented and useful it seems to us that this is how advertising should work to the advantage of seller and buyer.
Do the people at Argyll Etkin know about response functions? Possibly not – but good luck to them.
And if you have no interest in stamps, you can always change your “blocked sender” options.
If you have a collection of stamps you are interested in selling at auction or simply need information about stamps, please contact us at Where To Sell for free advice and suggestions.
