As a marketing consultant, I speak with many businesses and there is one huge mistake that nearly all of them make in their marketing. They wrongly think it takes only one marketing piece to get a prospect to buy. They will send out one postcard or one sales letter or one email to a list of prospects and wonder why so few people (or zero people) purchased their product or service. Or, they will place one ad in a trade publication and wonder why they received few or zero sales.

The reason for their lack of success is simple. It takes repetitive marketing over time (6-12 months or more) to build trust and desire. It has been proven that most people (and businesses) have to receive a minimum of 7 marketing pieces from a company before they will even consider buying.

Why is this? There are several reasons:

1. They are not interested in what you are selling today. However, that does not mean they won't be interested in what you are selling tomorrow, next month, or a year from now. A "No" today does not mean a "No" tomorrow.

2. Trust. Nearly all people need to have a feeling of trust toward a company before they will do business with them. Trust is built by receiving regular and consistent marketing messages over time.

3. Mood. The day your prospect receives your marketing piece he/she may have been in a lousy mood and threw it away or ignored it.

4. No money. The prospect wants what you are selling but cannot afford it right now. However, in 3, 6, or 12 months from now, they may have the money and they will buy.

5. Too busy to think about it right now.

6. For one reason or another, your marketing piece never reached them.

When you look at all the reasons prospects have for not buying, you now see why repetitive marketing is so important. To be successful in marketing, you must keep marketing to your prospects over and over.

So what is repetitive marketing? Here are a few examples:

1. Sending out a sales letter or a postcard to your list of prospects every month.

2. Having an email newsletter that goes out to your prospects every month.

3. Sending out a monthly paper newsletter to all your customers and prospects. This does not need to be a fancy 4-color 12-page newsletter. A simple 1 page black and white newsletter printed on both sides is more than sufficient. Again, the key is repetition. Send it out every month and keep the content very friendly, information-based, and personal. The more friendly and personal it is, the more marketing success you will have.

4. If you advertise in print publications such as trade journals, you need to advertise in every issue. It is much smarter and more effective to place a small ad every month rather than placing one large ad one time.

5. If you advertise on radio, it must be done month after month. As soon as prospects stop hearing your name and sales message, they forget about you. Same thing with TV - for it to be successful, it must be done continuously. Out of site is out of mind.

My e-newsletter is a perfect example of marketing success caused by repetition. Many of my clients had been receiving my free marketing newsletter for upwards of a year or more before they decided to make first contact with me. What this means is that they received at least 12 marketing pieces from me before they finally decide to take action and purchase my services. If I had only contacted these prospects one time, I would have never gotten them as clients.

If you want to be successful in marketing, the key is repetition.

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