It’s not a secret that repeating an action makes it a habit. The same applies to marketing, as my boss (the wonderful Deb Cochran) always says, "do it once, use it seven times."
Television and print advertising are the most notable, of course. How many times do you see the same commercial during an hour-long program? In order to get the brand’s message across, the message needs to be repeated to the consumer so that the consumer can retain that message. The condition, of course, is that it (a) needs to be a "good" message and (b) a well-thought out one (in other words, you’ve got to think about every detail and make sure the sum equals your intended message).
Not always thought about, but also important…events. We recently held a large event (and very successful, I might add), and we received multiple comments (enough to make me think about this topic) about how well the message of the event was carried through every last detail. It made the guests feel cared-about. Not only did we intend for them to have a wonderful experience as soon as they walked through the door, but the sum of the details reinforced that desire.
This applies to content, too, but in a different way. With content, the message is in the repetitiveness itself. What I mean is that if you write some kind of content – a blog post, an article, a white paper, etc. – you need to broadcast that message on all of your networks. If you’re on more than one network (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.), you already know that each of your networks has a different audience (with some crossover, I’m sure). Why leave it to chance that your identified target audience will read it? Sure, you’ve got a successful blog, but that doesn’t mean your target audience sees it. The more times an audience sees your work, likes your work, the more likely you’ll be able to build a relationship. Just make sure you’re not posting the exact same thing to all networks, that isn’t going to cut it. Take the time (five minutes, maybe?) to craft the descriptive message (your status update or Tweet) to each network’s audience.
The great thing about repeating marketing messages is that you’re not reinventing anything, it takes less time to repeat a message than it does to originally create it.
Where else can you find the repetitive nature of marketing?