Hey Reader!

50% of parenting is repetition.

True? Feels true. It’s one of the many aspects of raising littles no one tells you about. You will repeat yourself constantly.

It’s how we learn, so it kind of makes sense, but that’s cold comfort when you’re telling your child for the ten millionth time to put their dishes into the dishwasher. Or to brush their teeth before bed. Or to leave sticks outside.

That last one may not apply to all parents, but my kids were big fans of bringing the outside in.

Repetition feels less necessary when it comes to adults, but let me tell you, it’s still imperative. That's a piece of advice I love to give, but which I still have trouble following myself.

You might feel like you’ve made the offer, given the tip, or explained the process already and it would be annoying in the extreme to say it all over again.

You would be wrong.

Aside from the fact that we need to hear something 5-7 times before it really sinks in, your audience might not even see your message the first three times you put it out there.

Let’s say you’ve got an open rate of 50%. Congratulations! That’s amazing. But this means that if you mention that you do one-on-one coaching in a newsletter, only half the people on your list might have read about it.

Because there are the people who opened the email and only half read it, or skimmed it. They might not have fully taken in the message.

Then there are the ones who thought, “Huh, maybe I should look into that…” but didn’t.

All in all it’s a pretty small proportion of your readers who read the email, paid close attention to your offer, and then took action on it.

Which can feel an awful lot like “No one cares about this offer.”

But! If you mention this offer every single month, you’ll find that more people will read about it, more people will spend time thinking about it, and more people who had initial interest in it will finally hit the BUY button.

Or set up a call to learn more.

Or hit reply to get details.

We avoid repetition because we don’t want to bore people, or pester people.

But honestly? We’re merely giving them the opportunity to take advantage of our expertise, whether that’s making an offer or reminding them to use the tip we’re so generously sharing.

The person who saw it the first two times is probably not going to unsubscribe in anger when they see it the third time. In fact, that third time might be the one that pushes them from interest into purchase.

Or it might offer them the opportunity to gloat at having taken you up on your offer or tip the first time. I mean, who doesn’t like feeling proud of having been an early adopter?

Here’s another little secret. If you’re okay with repeating yourself, that’s fewer brand new ideas you have to come up with.

Say you send out an email every single week. If you commit to writing about your signature offer every month, you’ve got a quarter of your content already determined! Then you can get creative and think of twelve different ways to describe it.

You’ll not only end up catching more eyes, you’ll explain your program or course or whatever more and more clearly, including details that will appeal to different people.

Really, everyone wins. So go ahead, repeat yourself, and then do it again. And again. Do it more often than you’re really comfortable with.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Yours in infinite repetition,

Julia

PS - Speaking of repetition, you should think about joining Consistency Club! Every Wednesday morning we get together for an hour of writing. It’s easy, it’s fun, it’s productivity at its best. Sign up! Sign up! Sign up!

​Hot Chip understands the joy in repetition, and so does this email. Forward it to someone who needs to say it again.