"Let's take a break".
These are not words you ever want to hear, whether it’s in a romantic relationship or business partnership. It always gives a sinking feeling.
If it’s in a work context it leads me to think that the person who wants to take a break from their marketing fundamentally misunderstands how marketing works. Marketing is all about consistency. It’s about showing up and keeping on showing up. One single brilliant viral campaign may change everything for your business, but if you don’t keep showing up, people will forget about you.
If you’ve started to build momentum, the last thing you want to do it break that stride. It’s so much harder to build up a buzz again from nothing, than it is to keep building on what you’ve got.
Rule of 7
That’s because of how human minds work. We rarely absorb information the first time we’re told it and we certainly don’t take action because we’re told to once (unless doing that thing was in the front of our mind already).
The classic “Rule of 7” in marketing states that people need to be exposed to a message at least seven times before taking an action. The marketing execs of movies in the 1930s found that people needed to be exposed to movie trailers at least seven times before going to see the film.
Nowadays, with all the noise of social media competing with digital ads, TV, radio, billboards, etc, it’s probably more. But what the rule of 7 touches on is that you need to engage with your audience multiple times, consistently. And they’re not going to see everything you put out there.
Only you see all your marketing
The other day on LinkedIn I saw a post that said, “You are the only one that sees 100% of your marketing” and it’s very true. You may feel like you’re putting a lot out into the world but your audience won’t see it all. So in order to maintain a presence, you need to share your message with the world and keep sharing it with the world. Don’t stop because if you do, they’ll just forget about you.
If you want to establish if something is working, test it and measure it in parallel with continuing to build it. You can always abandon it later. But if you start something and then stop doing it to see if it’s working, I can almost guarantee that it won’t.
Stick to your message
And because people won’t see everything you share, you need to stick with your message
Marketing is an investment and requires commitment and time. The last thing you want to do is take a break when you’ve just started to build something great.
Obviously, I'm biased since this is how I earn my living, but I also believe it and it's something I've seen time and again with companies. So my encouragement to you is:
- Think very carefully before you stop something; and
- Don't start something unless you mean to keep going with it.