Self Employed Success

One thing I know for sure: your customers are busy people. They see and hear your marketing message, and they may think, “Hey, that’s a great product!” Then a child (or the boss) starts to scream, or an ice storm knocks out power, or they run out of gas on the highway, and POOF! — Instant Distraction.

Placing just one advertising message and expecting miracle sales is a recipe for marketing disaster.  Marketing is a marathon not a sprint. It requires repetition to gain their attention. It requires repetition to RE-gain their attention. It requires repetition to gain their trust and respect. It requires repetition to get them to take action.

There is strength in repetition. Think about doing sit-ups. You don’t do just one…you do them over and over again, because the repetition of the exercise sends messages to your body to build specific muscles.

When planning your marketing campaign, common marketing wisdom tells us you need to get your message out to the customer at least seven times before they’ll really pay attention and act on it. If you have a mailing list of responsive clients, maybe two or three repetitions is enough.

Yes, there is such a thing as annoying people with too much marketing. Daily repetition of the exact same marketing message will cause people to exit quicker than a skunk in a movie theater. But a balanced pacing of marketing messages (say once a week or once every 10 days), plus a focus on what the benefit is to the customer, will reap rewards every time.

Whether you use email marketing, printed postcards, or Google Adwords, repetition of your marketing message is one of the key factors in getting people to really see and hear it. It ensures that, should they become distracted and forget about your message, that you give them another reminder. Plan your marketing campaigns accordingly.

Read the complete Why Marketing Fails blog series here:

• Why Marketing Fails: Introduction
• Why Marketing Fails #1: Market Research
• Why Marketing Fails #2: Follow-the-Herd Marketing
• Why Marketing Fails #3: No Follow-Up
• Why Marketing Fails #4: Blindfold Marketing
• Why Marketing Fails #5: Niche Exhaustion
• Why Marketing Fails #6: Lack of Repetition
• Why Marketing Fails #7: Not Tracking Success and Failure