Most small business owners think their marketing should feel new and exciting to them in order to be doing it right. In fact, they think that if they repeat themselves in their content, they’re doing it wrong.

But when we market our business to suit our personal needs of fun, newness and change, we forget about our audience and their needs of consistency and repetition from a brand.

The truth is: Once is rarely enough to move the needle in marketing.

The problem is, sensationalism and ‘get rich quick’ stories make headlines and rank in the algorithms. Like “how this one email made me millions”. Or “the exact DM script that brought in $20,000”. Or “my six-figure launch”. And because we hear these stories, we want them too, and we mistakenly think that one action should create big results. We put all of our expectations on one action:

One launch.

One email sent about your offer.

One mention of your lead magnet on your Instagram.

One valuable piece of content shared.

One invitation to work with you.

And when our one action doesn’t create the results we expect… we can feel deflated, rejected and give up.

But what ‘big claim’ marketing excludes is backstory.

There is rarely a mention of the repetition of actions already taken before the big success. The 100 or 1,000 emails that person had already sent that didn’t make millions. Or the 2,000 DMs that brought in $0, then $20, then $200… before reaching $20,000. Or the 10 previous launches that the business owner learnt from to experience their six-figure launch.

Take Seth Godin for example. He is one of the world’s most well known marketers in the world. Seth he has written a daily blog post for a decade.

One blog post probably wouldn’t have done much for Seth’s brand and bottom line. A year of daily blog posts would have done more. But a decade of blogs posts… well there’s a reason his name is now synonymous with marketing. And that he has helped more than 80,000 people through his courses on Udemy alone.

Another example of repetition at work is the Australian musician Tones & I. According to her Wikipedia page, Tones and I started her Youtube channel – under her name Toni Watson – in 2009, alongside performing at local gigs and festivals and spent years busking.

But it wasn’t until ten years later, in 2019, that Tones and I’s single, Dance Monkey, reached number one on the official music charts of over 30 countries.

Tones and I didn’t do one street gig and make it to the big time. She did street gigs for YEARS!

So why is it so hard for us to persist with our marketing, and keep doing the same thing over and over again? There’s three main mistakes we make.

Mistake #1: We assume everyone in our audience not only sees – but consumes – everything we share

The average open rate of an email newsletter is 30%. That’s one in three people in your audience that actually begin to engage with your email. Fewer people will read it word for word or make it to the end.

As small business owners – and content creators – we make the mistake of assuming that every person in our audience takes in the full dose of all of the content we are creating.

To add to that, because we spend time and effort with our marketing – thinking about it, planning it, researching, writing/recording, editing… by the time we publish that piece of content, or promote our offer, we forgot that that one piece of content is the only thing that some of our audience are seeing.

I have spoken with clients when they are mid launch. And while they feel as though they have shared a lot of content… they have only posted once about their offer to their social media feed.

Once is rarely enough to move the needle in marketing. You need to seperate your input with the actual output.

And after that sobering reality check, we might question “what is the point” of creating content at all?

But the better question to ask is…

How often and how much of your content is your audience really seeing to delight them, encourage them, help them and let them know you can (and should be!) the person to help them?

It’s less than you think, which means you need to do more than you think.

Mistake #2: We assume that everyone who wants what we share will take action straight away.

We think, if they wanted it they would have bought it /downloaded it/contacted me by now!

But not everyone needs what you have to offer right now, but they might in the future.

Not everyone can access what you have to offer right now, with time, money or other restraints, but they might in the future.

Not everyone resonates with the way you have shared about your offer right now, but they might in the future.

I have members who join The Modern Marketing Collective after being on my list for 3 years, or listening to my podcast for 2 years. If I stopped emailing my list or quit my podcast because I expected every subscriber to work with me immediately… I wouldn’t have these fabulous business owners from around the world buying from me today.

And because most of us are selling non-essential items, think about the last non-essential item you purchased. How long had that company been on your radar? How many pieces of content did you see before you purchased?

Mistake #3: Sharing the same thing feels boring to us so we don’t do it!

As entrepreneurially-minded, curious people, we love to explore and learn new ideas, and share those rather than the same ideas over and over. But when we do this, we move away from our original message, and our audience don’t know what our core focus is. We can give our audience whiplash! They keep getting pulled in different directions based on our current area of learning and interest!

This wouldn’t matter so much if what you do is for fun.. but it’s not very effective if your aim is to build a consistent brand, with a strong message, and make sales.

How to harness repetition for more reliable business success

Now we know how important it is to stay true to our brand message, continue sharing content, and repetition is so important… (even though it is more boring and predictable than our entrepreneurial brains are typically attracted to), here are 3 reminders to help you on your way:

1. Change the medium, not the message. Instead of changing up your content topics, change up the way you share the content to keep it fresh for you. For instance, play around between short form, long form, quotes, video content, carousels to feed your creativity.
2. Remind yourself of how many people there are in the world – and how many potential clients there are, that are yet to find you and your content! You haven’t saturated the market… in fact, you probably haven’t reached even 1% of your potential audience yet!
3. Play the long game. If you knew some people in your audience need a year or more to be in your sphere before working with you, what would change?

So how will you now practice repetition with your marketing?