Repetition, as an element of business, seeps into every corner, nook and cranny: First, there’s repetition of your core message. This ensures your business comes to mind right away when someone needs your services. Second, there’s repetition in the delivery of those services. That might be a series of steps taken to deliver the goods. (Think what may be Amazon’s fulfillment process steps.) Or, consider the steps you make to ensure thorough completion of your own projects.

Too Much Repetition

“Why, oh, why does s/he continue promoting that [xyz] over and over?!?!”

If you overhear someone make this frustrating complaint (which is never used in the positive sense, such as “Why, oh, why does s/he continue making me so much money?!?!”), you know someone’s got the message loud and clear (whether they want it or not). This form of repetition may be undesirable. Thus, receiving notice that many folks have unsubscribed from your newsletter is undesirable evidence that you’ve sent too frequently and/or to the wrong audience.

Beauty in Repetition

Repetition can be beautiful and desirable. Consider a field of lavender, a wave cresting and falling from one end of the horizon to another, not to mention nature’s amazing ability to build amazing pattern repetition in building cell structure. Artists have created attention-grabbing works for thousands of years, beginning with the repetitive arabesque patterns found in architecture in Asia and Middle East to the works of William Morris in England (see image top).

Repetition in Business

What does “repetition” mean for your business? For example, if you offer commonly available, and well-known services (i.e. you’ve got a lot of competition), then the repetition of your service must include information about how yours is better to close more sales. What is your unique selling proposition that others offering this same service don’t have? On the other hand, if your business offers a new product or service that few are familiar with, the repetition of your message must include explanatory information. There’s a learning curve for your audience.

Repetition in Marketing

Repetition in marketing encompasses multiple channels, all of which deserve your attention. (But, you may quickly determine that some channels will have little impact on growing your business.) In general, my experience is that business owners don’t value repetition enough (and its strength and power) in their marketing strategy. What do I mean by that? First, let’s do a quick summary on the elements of your marketing strategy:

Components of Marketing Communication Strategy

Consider “repetition” in

• Design and use of your logo
• Business tagline or motto
• Your mission and vision
• Website – Styling, colors, patterns, fonts, content
• Social media channels
• Email marketing & SMS
• Print advertising
• Signage and collateral
• Events

The above list isn’t comprehensive, but I wanted to lodge the basics into your short-term memory so you can return to the list later to make quick evaluation. (See below.)

Second, let’s evaluate those components against the application of repetition, visibility and frequency.

Repetition, Visibility and Frequency

Much like the constraint triangle (quality, speed and price), evaluating how much repetition of your logo, message, and other components is required to successfully grow your business is unique to each company. For example, choosing to advertise your services on a billboard is highly dependent upon its visibility and how frequently drivers and passengers will be viewing your offering as they pass by.

If your audience isn’t seeing (and registering) your offering on a highly frequent basis, it’s out of mind, aka “Out of sight, out of mind.” (With the human brain inundated by approximately 34 gigabytes of data every day to process, the occasional business message has a hard time making it to your consciousness.)

Alas, businesses don’t have unlimited marketing budgets to ensure that their visibility is greater than all the others in the surrounding area. Therefore, you must be highly strategic with your offering to land on prospects’ radars, let alone make your message grab their full attention.

Repetition and Frequency in Marketing

Have you ever wondered, “What ever happened to XYZ?” thinking about a person or business you haven’t seen anything from in eons? This thought often pops up when you recognize you’ve seen a steady rhythm of visibility from a business in the past that’s now gone invisible.

It’s normal after the holiday season to perceive retailers have gone invisible because their sales season has ended in the New Year. They time the repetition of visibility to coincide with the time of year of greatest sales. When is that for your business?

Related to the visibility of the retail advertising season is the frequency of their ads. Were you irritated by the frequency of messages in your inbox or on your TV? Or, did those ads remind you of a purchase you needed to make?

A common mistake I see in businesses’ repetition frequency is considering only a one-and-done strategy: Mailing one postcard, sending one email, running one print ad, posting content one time. Bottom line: It’s simply not enough to register in recipients’ brains.

Quick Questions

These questions are geared toward helping you think about “repetition” as part of your business and its marketing:

1. How do you feel generally about how repetition is currently employed in your business?
2. Did your mind immediately jump to “I should have repeated this social media post” self-reminder?
3. Depending upon your perspective, the opposite of “repetition” may be “intermittent,” or “single,” or “discontinued.” Which of these labels would you attach to various aspects of your marketing? And, where are changes needed to become consistent with your repetition?
4. Where do you repeat that is good? Where have you over-repeated that may be turning off prospects?
5. Repetition and forgetfulness: One brings thoughts to mind; the other is a result of inconsistent repetition. Where do you need to make changes to improve?

Evaluating Your Repetition

Use this chart (or a visual in your head) to evaluate how you’ve employed repetition in your marketing. Take action on the ones you’ve scored low or poorly:

Summary

Repetition plays an important role in business success. For some, it’s the repetition of a kind voice answering the phone when calling a business for a need. For others, it’s the consistent and clear message they can count on when they’re ready to buy goods from a business.

For those easily distracted by the latest “bright and shiny object,” it can be difficult to focus on employing consistent repetition in their business practices. For others, they need to focus on not using a sledgehammer with their messages and visuals which may turn off prospects.

Use tools such as automated reminders, outside experts and client surveys to help improve your deployment of good repetition practices in your business.

Elements of Business focuses on one word or short phrase about business. Given the demands upon our daily attention, it’s often daunting to consider the recommendations in an article. (It’s estimated the average American consumes about 100,000 words heard or read every day.) But a simple word or phrase may be enough to stir your grey cells on the task at hand.