When thinking about topics I can write about and posts I can create, I often think “I already said that.” Do you know the feeling? But how bad is repetition – or is repetitive content really wrong?
The answer is a little more complex than a simple yes or no. We have to make a difference between blog content and other content like social media content or email content.
And we have to take a deeper look at what content repetition does – and how it works.
Because repetition can be very annoying but it also has tremendous power.
On your blog, you don’t want to double up on topics. I will explain later in this post why repetitive content on your blog is a bad idea.
If you think you can do better than your existing blog post or you have now more information than when you wrote that first piece of content, you should consider updating your existing post instead of writing a new one.
But in other places than your blog like social media or email newsletters, you not only can but you should repeat information. In fact, it is crucial to repeat the core messages until they hit the mark with your audience and they associate you with this topic.
Repeatedly covering similar topics is the key to your social media success. You want to build community and reputation around your core keywords and questions. To achieve this you need to repeat the message or people won’t know what you stand for.
No, I am not asking you to sound like an old record with a crack. There is more to repetition than copy and pasting what you already published.
If you think about how you learned things back in school, many times it was about repetition:
- Learning vocabulary is checking back multiple times if you still know the meaning of the words until all words have manifested into your brain.
- Learning history like knowing what happened in 1848 or 1914 or knowing when was the American Revolutionary War is about re-reading about it until the dates and events found a place in your brain where they sit comfortably.
- Explaining math to school kids is not about mentioning it once, it is about explaining it over and over in different ways and letting them do some examples over and over until they really know what to do.
The reason why repetition is such a valuable tool when learning something is the curve of forgetting. Each time we read about something again it takes us longer to forget it:
Image source: TTRO Never Stop Learning
Repetition as a teaching device
Math is a good example for another reason. In case you did not know, I am a mathematician and worked as a scientific researcher and lecturer at university for a couple of years.
Math is a complex subject, not everyone understands it with the same explanation in the exact same words as someone else. A good math teacher can explain things in 100 different ways until they find one way to explain it that hits a mark with their students.
Teaching math is not about stupid repetition. It is about repeatedly finding new angles and different explanations for complex matters until your audience feels “Oh, yes. Got that.”
And that is quite similar to what you want to achieve with your online content.
You want to repeat your message in various ways until your audience has fully understood what you have to offer and the next time they need help in your topics, they turn to you for advice.
The content repetition you are after in your marketing content is not about exact repetition. It is about repeating a message or topic in different words.
Branding through repetition
Building trust and branding yourself as an expert for something is like hammering a nail into a wall. It does not take one stroke with the hammer, you need to hit that nail multiple times.
That’s how branding yourself for one topic through your repetitive content works:
- The first time they hear something it may inspire a thought like: “sounds interesting.”
- The second time they hear it they may think “Oh yes, I heard about this before, too bad I did not keep it in mind.”
- The third time their thought could be “Yes, I need to dig deeper into this.”
- The fourth time “Shoot, why did I forget it again!”
- The fifth time they save your post to read it with more care later.
- The sixth time they set a time in their calendar when they want to act on it.
- The seventh time they are ready to take action.
Many of us shy away from repeating things we already said. We don’t want to annoy. We want to attract through value.
But at the same time we want to focus on what we can do best, on where we can help the most.
If we only mention this once, we will miss a large part of our audience.
Why repetition is important: Marketing Rule of 7
The Marketing Rule of 7 is a classic advertising concept that suggests that a prospect needs to hear or see a message at least seven times before they are likely to take action or make a purchasing decision. This rule about the significance of repetition in marketing originates from the belief that repetition increases familiarity, which in turn builds trust and drives conversions.
I am not an advertising expert but one of the most effective forms of advertising I have used in the past is “remarketing.” This is a form of advertising where you show your ads explicitly to people who have already had some interaction with your brand. In online advertising, this can be done by collecting data about website visitors and creating follow-up ads for these people who already know you.
The Marketing Rule of 7 is a guideline more than it is a scientific formula. You will never know if your prospect buys at the 7th encounter, if it is going to be the 5th or 9th or if they need 50 repetitions.
The most important takeaway from this rule is that consistency and repeated messaging is not only allowed in marketing but that it is crucial for marketing success.
Here are the key considerations behind the Rule of 7:
- Repetition Reinforces Awareness: Seeing the same brand or message multiple times makes it more recognizable, Repetitive content increases the likelihood that consumers will remember it when making a purchase decision.
- Building Trust: Consistent exposure helps build trust with potential customers, as repeated interactions can make a brand seem more reliable and authoritative.
- Consumer Attention: In a cluttered media environment, it takes multiple exposures for a message to break through the noise and capture the attention of a target audience.
- Adaptation Over Time: While originally applied to traditional media like TV or radio, the Rule of 7 has been adapted for modern digital marketing, where customers encounter brands across multiple platforms, including social media, email, websites, and search engines.
Although the rule is a guideline rather than a strict scientific formula, it emphasizes the importance of consistent and repeated messaging to move potential customers down the path to conversion.
The marketing rule of 7 is a clear indication that repetitive content is not all bad but a legitimate marketing tool. And if they don’t take action after the 7th time they read something from you, maybe it is the 50th or the 75th content repetition.
For the Harry Potter fans: It may not be the best or most humane educational strategy but I am sure Harry will never forget the words (“I must not tell lies”) Prof. Umbridge made him write with a cursed quill until his hand bled.
What do you want to be known for? Repeat that!
In my personal life, I have some friends I would call when I have questions about dogs, I have a cousin who is a lawyer and who I would call with legal questions, I usually turn to my mom when I have medical questions as she is a doctor. These friends and family members got into their role by repeatedly giving good advice and showing knowledge about the topic they are now associated with.
If we transfer this to our business life, we have some people who we would ask about email marketing, some people who we would call for problems with our website, then we have some people we would ask about accounting questions, and so on for all things business related.
Now think about your business; this is what you want to achieve: That people call you or visit your website if they have questions about the topic and questions you can answer. But to get there, you have to make sure that people associate you with the right words and questions.
I want you to think of me when you have questions about efficient content creation. That is why I am repeatedly creating content about content creation.
One way (or the only way) to make people think about you when they think about your topics is to keep showing up in their life with repetitive content around this topic.
It is not enough that people read one piece of content from you about this topic. They have to continuously stumble across you whenever they consume content about this.
And for that you need repetitive content. You cannot mention your content pillar once and then move on to talk about something else. If you do that people will not know what your content pillar is.
You need to find out your content pillar and the related words that you want to be known for.
Then you need to repeat, repeat, repeat.
But keep in mind that it will be hard to sell stuff that is not related to these words and topics you have build for your brand. Because if you are not known for them, why would people trust you with it?
That is why even big brands struggle to move into new markets. If you want to diversify or move on to a new topic, you need to adjust your content strategy.
Redundancy vs. Repetition
Not every repetition is redundant.
In writing, repetition can be a literary device that uses the same word or phrase over and over in order to catch or hold the reader’s attention. In this case, repetition is used with full consciousness and with a goal in mind.
Other forms of repetition are usually redundant. Redundancies are repeats of a word or phrase that are useless without adding anything of value to what has already been said.
While repetition can be done on purpose, redundancy can be very annoying to the reader who thinks “What the heck, I already read that. Why do you repeat it?”
Sometimes even redundancy is ok in your content.
Social media updates or email newsletters grow old fairly fast. After a couple of hours or days nobody cares what was already said. Only a fraction of the recipients or followers read the content and remember exactly what you said or wrote. And a large percentage may even appreciate the reminder if they can remember.
If the topic is interesting enough the repetition can be of value to your audience: as a reminder or even as a first-time message to new followers and people who did not read the first post.
What is different for repetitive content on a blog?
If you can repeat social media posts without annoying your audience, why should you not also do it with blog content?
Blog posts stay active and visible for a long time. They don’t grow old if their content does not grow old and outdated.
More than one blog post about the same or a similar topic is redundant.
And while we are not necessarily talking about duplicate content here, content that covers similar topics faces similar problems that we know from duplicate content.
Duplicate content is bad for SEO as it competes against all other blog pieces on your blog about this topic. Nobody needs a second blog post to read about the same topic again. If they still have questions or want to check the information again, they can simply re-visit the first post.
Repetitive, similar or duplicate content will also have some other issues with SEO. Backlinks will be distributed over several piecesand search engines will have a hard time to know which piece of content to show in the search listings.
Too much repetition
However, even for social media content that is long forgotten, you should not send the exactly same posts on repeat. Instead, you can mix it up with other topics, reword it, find new angles, use a different format, add a story, talk to someone about it, give an example, use an image…. be creative!
Learn to conceal your repetitive content in the variety of coats you put on the information.
Because the best marketers and content creators can put the same fact into 100 different posts. Until the message really sunk in and firmly connects your brand with your content pillars.
That said, here is a final word of warning: If you repeat boring stuff, it will still be boring stuff. Shouting out promotional messages on repeat is not what will solve your marketing problems 🙂
