I am a banana watcher. I don’t like to eat green bananas, but I am also not fond of brown bananas. I prefer to eat bananas when they are perfectly yellow. When they come home from the grocery store and sit in a basket on the kitchen counter, I watch them. I try to pick out the one in the bunch who will ripen first. As they all start to turn yellow, I try to keep the one that will ripen last off to itself. The problem is, when they get to that perfect state of yellow, it is not long until they degrade into brown. One day in the life of a banana may be too late.

Let me relate that to your marketing. There is a time when marketing is ripe – it is time to engage consumers in the promotion of what you are selling. There is also a time when your marketing has peaked and will stop having as great of an influence on your target market. How do you know when your marketing is starting to turn the wrong color? The simple answer is when customers stop paying attention to it. However, if you are in charge of your marketing, there is a better way to determine when it is time to change your marketing than waiting until consumers stop buying your brand and then doing something different. There is some strategic planning that you can do to determine when it is time to move on from one marketing campaign to the other before your customers lose interest.

Understand the rhythms of your target market. You may be in an industry that typically has a buying season. If so, it is pretty easy to figure out when you should be ramping up and promoting your brand. However, if the consumers buying from you are more sporadic with their interest, understand the psychology behind buying your product or service. Why are consumers purchasing what you are selling? There are three general reasons why consumers buy any product or service:

1. It is a necessity of life. There are certain purchases that cannot be avoided if you want to live your life as you desire. An example of this would be tires on a car. If I want to drive my car, I have to have good tires. If tires lasted forever, that would be fine with me because I do not get a happy feeling inside when I think about purchasing them.

2. It makes me feel good. This is just the opposite of a necessity. This is all about making me happy. Think of ice cream or tickets to a concert. You would not die if you didn’t have them, but you desire them because they bring you pleasure.

3. It makes life easier. It solves a problem. It reduces the time it takes to do something I don’t necessarily like to do. It takes away my pain. Everything from cold remedies to curbside delivery of groceries falls into this category.

Once you figure out generally why consumers are buying from you, determine when do they need your products the most. That may be when they absolutely have to have it (if you are selling a necessity) or it may be when they are feeling good (if you are selling happiness with your products) or it may be when they are most frustrated (if you are selling a solution.) Promoting your brand at the right time comes down to getting in front of the customer when their time is ripe. This is the reason you will never see a pizza commercial on the morning show on TV while you are getting ready for work, but you will see them when a football game is on. Pizza checks two marketing boxes: it is pleasure food during a time when the consumer is doing something they enjoy (watching football) and their home delivery services make life easier. Flat tires can happen any time of the year, but when are they most likely to happen? During the winter if you live in cold weather. That is when tire sales are ripe.

If you want to get ahead of the consumer in your marketing, do a little research. Find out why they are buying from you and when they are most likely to need your products and services. Market to them in the days leading to the need. Don’t wait until the day after – it will be too late.

But how do you know when to make a change in your marketing? When is the banana about to turn brown with your customers? With every successful promotion, there is a peak, a plateau and a valley. Well-designed marketing is made to catch the consumer’s attention. Often that is done in clever ways that typically picks up on at least one of these hooks:

• The price is low

• The quality is high

• You can have it quickly (now!)

• The service is exceptional

In each campaign we do, we measure the engagement we get from consumers. You can predict the spike when they first see the marketing. After they see it two or three times, that engagement begins to level off. When the message has saturated the market, it begins to drop off. Understanding this, we time our campaigns to start in the midst of the plateau. Don’t wait for the banana to turn brown before you re-engage your audience with your marketing.

Following this pattern will help you to stay away from an irrelevant day with your marketing. Keeping something fresh in front of your target market is key to your business success.