Broad-Reach Works Better for Scale: Why Personalization Alone Won’t Grow Your Brand

By German Tirado, August 13, 2025

Introduction: The Big Myth in Modern Marketing

In today’s digital-first world, marketers are constantly told that personalized marketing, tailoring every message to an individual’s behavior, demographics, or past interactions is the key to success. This belief has driven huge investments in data analytics, marketing automation platforms, and hyper-targeted advertising campaigns. The promise is seductive: if you can deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, conversions will soar and your brand will grow effortlessly.

However, the hard evidence from decades of marketing science tells a very different story. While personalization can be useful in certain tactical situations, it is not the primary driver of large-scale brand growth. Brands that rely too heavily on narrow, one-to-one communication often miss the much bigger opportunity building awareness and preference among the vast majority of buyers who are not in-market right now.

This is where broad-reach marketing proves its value. Rather than focusing on micro-segmentation, broad-reach campaigns aim to reach all potential category buyers current, lapsed, and future regardless of their immediate purchase intent. The goal is to consistently build mental availability (the likelihood your brand comes to mind in a buying situation) and physical availability (how easy your brand is to find and buy).

For companies offering internet marketing services, telephone answering services, or any other competitive product or service, the path to scale is not through chasing only the 5% of buyers currently looking to purchase—it’s through ensuring your brand is familiar, distinctive, and linked to as many buying situations as possible. That way, when buyers eventually do enter the market, your brand is one of the first they consider.

The reality is clear: if you want sustainable, long-term brand growth, broad-reach marketing isn’t just better for scale, it’s essential. The rest of this article will explain why personalization alone can limit growth, how broad reach builds the foundations for market leadership, and the exact steps to implement this evidence-based approach in your own business.

Introduction: The Big Myth in Modern Marketing
The 95–5 Rule: Why Narrow Targeting Misses Most Buyers
Why Familiarity Beats Perfect Timing
Mental and Physical Availability: The Real Growth Drivers
The Limits of Personalization
How Broad-Reach Marketing Scales Brands
Practical Steps for Applying Broad Reach in Your Business
Measuring Success
Conclusion: Broad Reach Is the Proven Path to Scale
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Works Cited

1. The 95–5 Rule: Why Narrow Targeting

Misses Most Buyers

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s research shows that in most categories, only about 5% of potential buyers are ready to purchase at any given time [15]. That means 95% of your future customers aren’t currently shopping.

If your marketing strategy focuses only on personalized campaigns to those actively “in-market” today, you’re ignoring the vast majority of future buyers who will eventually need your product or service.

For example:

In B2B, a company might only review its IT vendor every three to five years.

In household insurance, customers might shop around only once a decade.

By running broad-reach campaigns, you continuously build brand memory so that when the 95% finally do enter the market, your brand is top of mind.

2. Why Familiarity Beats Perfect Timing

When buyers need to make a purchase, they don’t usually start with a blank slate. They search their memory for familiar brands that feel like a safe choice. This is where Category Entry Points (CEPs) come in specific cues like:

When: “When my website traffic drops suddenly”

Where: “When my team is working remotely”

Why: “When I want to cut costs in customer service”

These cues trigger brand recall. The more CEPs your brand is linked to, the more likely it is to be in the buyer’s initial consideration set [19].

If you’ve only been showing ads to a small, hyper-targeted audience, you’ve limited the number of buyers who have built those associations. Familiarity wins over precise timing and broad-reach marketing builds that familiarity.

3. Mental and Physical Availability: The Real Growth Drivers

The two pillars of brand growth are:

Mental Availability – The likelihood your brand comes to mind in a buying situation.

Physical Availability – How easy your brand is to find and buy.

Broad-reach campaigns strengthen mental availability by reaching more buyers, more often, across more buying situations. Personalization, while potentially useful for conversion, rarely delivers the scale needed to significantly boost mental availability.

In B2B business insurance, for instance, State Farm has a much broader mental availability footprint than smaller competitors. They have more decision-makers linking six or more CEPs to their brand, making them both harder to lose and more likely to win new customers [19].

4. The Limits of Personalization

Step 1: Choose Channels With Real Reach

Mass Media: TV, radio, YouTube, and programmatic display.

Digital Broad-Reach: Facebook/Instagram reach campaigns, streaming audio, and connected TV.

Avoid Over-Narrowing: Don’t exclude audiences unless there’s a legal or ethical requirement.

Step 2: Build CEPs Into Creative

Focus on one CEP per ad for clarity.

Over the course of the year, rotate through multiple CEPs (e.g., “when you’re launching a new location,” “when you’re upgrading software,” “when budgets are tight”) to widen mental availability.

Step 3: Maintain Distinctive Brand Assets

Use consistent logos, colors, taglines, and sonic cues to reinforce recognition.

Ensure assets are visible in the first seconds of any ad.

Step 4: Balance Long-Term Brand Building With Short-Term Sales Activation

Allocate roughly 60-70% of budget to broad-reach brand building and 30-40% to targeted activation campaigns for in-market buyers.

Metrics That Matter

Broad-reach campaigns work because they:

Maximize Audience Size: Your brand is seen by all category buyers, including those out-of-market today.

Refresh Brand Memory: Regular exposure prevents memory decay and counteracts competitor advertising.

Build CEP Associations: Over time, buyers connect your brand to multiple buying situations.

For example, a company offering internet marketing services might run broad-reach campaigns that associate their brand with:

“When I want more leads” (Why)
“Before launching a new product” (While)
“When I need more visibility on Google” (Why)

A telephone answering service could target:

“When I can’t answer calls after hours” (When)
“When I need professional call handling” (Why)
“During seasonal sales spikes” (While)

6. Practical Steps for Applying Broad Reach in Your Business

If you want to implement broad-reach marketing effectively:

Step 1 – Allocate Most of Your Budget to Reach

Aim to reach at least 80% of category buyers regularly. Use mass channels such as TV, radio, YouTube, or broad-targeted social ads.

Step 2 – Build and Refresh CEP Links

Focus each campaign execution on one CEP. Over the year, rotate through multiple CEPs to build a wide and fresh memory network.

Step 3 – Maintain Physical Availability

Ensure your brand is easy to buy when buyers decide—optimize your website, distribution, pricing, and customer service.

Step 4 – Use Personalization Sparingly

Reserve personalized campaigns for nurturing leads, remarketing, or cross-selling—never as your sole growth strategy.

Conclusion: Broad Reach Is the Proven Path to Scale

The idea that personalized, one-to-one marketing is the ultimate growth driver has been repeated so often it feels like fact. But when we examine the hard evidence from marketing science, the picture changes. Personalization can play a role particularly for lead nurturing or customer retention, but it cannot be the backbone of a brand growth strategy.

The data from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is clear: most buyers are out-of-market most of the time. In categories from internet marketing services to telephone answering services, focusing only on those ready to buy today means ignoring the vast majority of your future customers. To scale, you must build mental availability across all category buyers, ensuring your brand is easily remembered in multiple buying situations, also known as Category Entry Points (CEPs).

Broad-reach marketing is how market leaders achieve this. By consistently reaching a large audience, your brand gains:

Wider awareness across current and future buyers.

Stronger brand recall in competitive purchase moments.

Increased physical availability, making your brand easy to find and choose.

Whether you sell professional services, local home repairs, or complex B2B solutions, the laws of marketing are the same. Broad-reach campaigns scale brands by making them easy to think of and easy to buy. Personalization, while appealing, should be seen as a tactical complement not the strategic core of your marketing mix.

If your goal is sustainable growth and market leadership, stop chasing only the 5% of buyers currently in-market. Instead, invest in broad-reach strategies that continuously build and refresh memory structures for the 95% who will be your customers in the future. This is the proven path to achieving scale, dominating your category, and turning your brand into the one buyers instinctively choose when it matters most.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is broad-reach marketing?
Broad-reach marketing is a strategy that aims to reach as many potential category buyers as possible—both current and future—rather than focusing only on small, highly targeted segments. The goal is to maximize mental availability (the likelihood your brand comes to mind in a buying situation) and physical availability (how easy it is to buy your product or service).
Why does broad-reach marketing work better for scale than personalized marketing?
Broad-reach marketing works better for scale because most buyers—around 95% in many categories are not in-market at any given time. By reaching all potential buyers consistently, you build brand familiarity and ensure that when they do need your product or service, your brand is top-of-mind. Personalized marketing often focuses too narrowly on the small percentage of buyers ready to purchase now, missing future customers.
Does personalized marketing still have a place in my strategy?
Yes. Personalized marketing can be effective for tactical purposes like retargeting website visitors, upselling existing customers, or reactivating lapsed clients. However, it should complement—not replace—broad-reach marketing when your objective is long-term brand growth.
How does broad-reach marketing apply to internet marketing services or telephone answering services?
For businesses offering internet marketing services or telephone answering services, broad-reach campaigns can associate your brand with multiple buying situations (also known as Category Entry Points). For example:
Internet marketing services: “When I need more leads,” “When launching a new product,” or “When I want higher Google rankings.”
Telephone answering services: “When I miss calls after hours,” “During peak season,” or “When I need professional call handling.”
How can I measure the effectiveness of broad-reach marketing?
Key metrics include:
Mental Penetration: The percentage of category buyers who recall your brand in at least one buying situation.
CEP Network Size: The average number of Category Entry Points linked to your brand.
Penetration Rate: The percentage of category buyers who purchased from you in the past year.
Share of Search: Your brand’s share of relevant search traffic compared to competitors.
Can small businesses afford broad-reach marketing?
Yes. Broad reach doesn’t have to mean expensive mass-media campaigns. Small businesses can use cost-effective channels like broad-targeted social media ads, YouTube, local radio, and community sponsorships to reach a large audience over time. The key is consistent exposure across multiple buying situations.
What’s the biggest mistake businesses make when they avoid broad-reach marketing?
The biggest mistake is focusing solely on the small portion of customers who are actively in-market today. This short-term view misses the opportunity to build relationships with the much larger pool of future buyers, which limits your long-term growth potential.

Works cited

[15] Dawes, J. (2021). Advertising effectiveness and the 95–5 rule: most B2B buyers are not in the market right now. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science.

[19] Romaniuk, J. (2022). Category Entry Points in a Business-to-Business (B2B) world. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science.