Do you know what Polly wants? Of course you do.
How did you know? You guessed it – repetition!
Cracking the code of effective marketing isn’t about shouting your message from the rooftops and hoping it sticks. It’s more like telling a joke: timing, delivery, and yes – repetition – are everything. Not the annoying kind where you become that broken record at a party, but the kind that ensures your punchline, or in this case, your key message, hits home.
Why message repetition is your new best friend
Repetition in marketing plays a pivotal role in enhancing brand recall, establishing trust and credibility, and fostering a consistent brand image. The idea is simple: the more frequently a consumer is exposed to a specific message, the more likely they are to remember, understand, and ultimately act on it.
Strategies for Effective Message Repetition
Successful repetition in marketing is more than just mindless duplication. You need to get strategic. It’s about integrating your key message across various platforms and presenting it in diverse and engaging ways. Below are 5 strategies for effective message repetition:
1. Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)
IMC involves a cohesive approach to sharing your message across different platforms such as digital, print, TV, and direct mail.
It sounds simple but is easy to get very wrong. How? Well, when a business does not have a cohesive plan with clearly defined messages, engaging multiple copywriters either across time or across different platforms can mean that messaging inconsistencies arise.
The solve for this is simple, have a clearly defined set of messages for the brand, its respective audiences and its products. That way, even if your brand has multiple copywriters across multiple channels over many years, they’ll all be hitting those same messages for a consistent user experience.
2. Content Repurposing
Transform a single piece of content into various other formats to repeat the same message creatively. Dress it up differently each time – make it fun and fresh for your audience. A blog post about “Choosing the Perfect Laptop for Work from Home” could be repurposed into an infographic, YouTube video, podcast episode, and a series of related social media posts.
Don’t be shy about reusing a great piece of content. It’s like your grandma’s secret sauce recipe – it’s delicious, so why not use it in different dishes?
3. Reminders & Call to Actions
Whatever the piece of content you are creating, the best brands always remember to return to the same call to actions. This plays out first on your website. Having a single call to action repeated in multiple sections of the same page, and even across multiple pages, is known to be more effective in having customers to take action. Pro tip: if the button colours are consistent, even better!
Another way to repeat your messages is through your regular newsletters or promotional emails. Here you can reiterate your key message effectively. A fitness company could, for instance, send weekly emails with varied content but a constant reminder about their core message, “Stay committed to your health and wellness.”
4. Retargeting / Remarketing
Have you ever left an e-store only to have the image of that perfect pair of shoes you admired but didn’t buy haunting your dreams? In the digital world, that’s retargeting. With this nifty strategy, you’re able to remind potential customers about the awesome products they viewed on your website but didn’t quite commit to.
Think of retargeting as that friendly nudge (or perhaps, a lovingly persistent sales clerk). “Remember these cool sneakers you checked out? Yeah, they’re still here, making every other shoe pale in comparison. Are you sure you want to pass them by?”
It’s a way to softly, yet insistently, whisper your key messages to customers who’ve already shown an interest in your brand, making it a great tool for drumming up those messages in their minds. But remember, the aim is to sound like a gentle reminder, not a blaring megaphone. So, be tactful and know when to draw the line.
Use remarketing to target customers who have interacted with your brand, serving them ads that re-emphasize your key messages.
Let’s say you’re a financial services company offering various investment plans. A potential customer visits your website and spends time reviewing a specific retirement savings plan but leaves without making a commitment. Now, in the grand theatre of the internet, this is your cue to retarget. Retargeting allows you to subtly remind customers of your key offerings and the benefits of planning their financial future with you.
5. Clothe Messages in Different Stories
Incorporate your key message into a compelling narrative. Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign is a stellar example where stories of diverse women challenging beauty standards reinforce their core message of natural beauty and self-esteem. Across different stories, the same fundamental message emerges. Employ this strategy and very quickly your brand identity emerges with crystal clarity in the eyes of your audience.
Repetition Overkill: Striking the Balance
Let’s face it: parrots can get annoying.
Repetition in marketing can very quickly go from “Ah, I remember this!” to “Not this again!”
While repetition in marketing is crucial, there’s a delicate balance to maintain. Overwhelming your audience with constant messages can lead to disinterest or even negative branding. So, how do you determine the right amount of repetition?
1. Audience Feedback: Watch for signs of discontent in comments, declining engagement, or direct feedback suggesting your content is too repetitive. If people start rolling their digital eyes at your content, it might be a sign you’ve crossed the line.
2. Engagement Metrics: Keep an eye on metrics like click-through rates, time spent on page, and shares. A decline could indicate message fatigue.
3. Unsubscribe or Unfollow Rates: A sudden increase in the number of people unsubscribing or unfollowing after a campaign might signal that your audience feels overwhelmed by repetitive messaging.
4. A/B Testing: Test different levels of message repetition in your campaigns to figure out what works best for your audience.
5. Sales and Conversion Rates: If these rates start to decline, your audience might have grown tired of hearing the same messages.
Conclusion: Less is not always more
So, you’ve hopped aboard the repetition train and are ready to ride the tracks of marketing success. But remember, the goal here is to become that catchy tune everyone hums, not the incessant alarm clock everyone wants to smash in the morning.
Strategic repetition in marketing is about reinforcing your key messages and getting your audience to remember you – sure – but for your charm and engaging content, not because you’ve badgered them into submission!
So, use these strategies wisely. Strike a balance between repetition and novelty, always keeping your messaging as fresh as grandma’s homemade lemonade on a hot summer’s day. Echo your key messages creatively and thoughtfully.
After all, effective repetition in marketing isn’t just about drilling your message into your audience’s minds—it’s about serenading their hearts. So, tune your marketing instrument and play a melody your audience will love to hear on repeat.
