Somewhere along the way, “reach” became a bad word.
Marketers started saying it with hesitation, as if being broad or inclusive meant being wasteful or unfocused.
I don’t see it that way.
After years of helping brands grow, I’ve learned that reach is the foundation of relevance.
Too often, I watch teams chase precision like it’s the holy grail, narrowing their focus until they’ve filtered out the very people who could become their next customers. They pay more to reach fewer people, mistaking exclusion for efficiency.
But the data tells a different story.
Light buyers, the ones who purchase once or twice a year, drive nearly half of all brand sales. Yet most targeting strategies exclude them.
That means we’re literally paying extra to avoid our future customers.
The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute demonstrated this decades ago: brands don’t grow by getting loyalists to buy more. They grow by reaching more people overall.
It’s simple math, but it’s also human psychology.
Familiarity breeds trust.
Repeated exposure builds memory.
Shared stories create belonging.
When I talk about reach, I’m not talking about spraying ads across screens. I’m talking about expanding the circle, inviting more people into the story of your brand.
Because when you reach more people with authenticity and heart, you’re not wasting impressions.
You’re planting the seeds of connection. Reach isn’t a dirty word.
It’s how communities grow.
It’s how cult brands are born.