KEY POINTS:
What's the most important act you need to do for your business today, tomorrow, and till the year 2025?
It's called frequency.
And before you start saying, "I already know that," please continue reading.
Because a very, very large portion of businesses understand this concept.
But very, very few businesses understand the ramifications of getting this concept wrong.
So let's start at the top: what is this frequency factor all about?
You know you need to talk to your customers.
But it's important to talk to your customers on pre-fixed days. And it's critical to talk to your customers on pre-fixed days till the year 2025.
And I'll tell you why.
Turn on your TV at 6pm. What do you get? The news, right?
Then turn it on tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the week after. You can turn on on any day and guess what?
The news is still on at 6pm.
Now imagine if you turned it on on a Monday and you had sports.
What if you turned it on on a Tuesday and - oops, it's an adult movie with clothes flying all over the place.
Would you continue to watch for the news? Or would you simply go to a news channel that was more reliable?
Most people don't understand that the most important thing in any marketing is the reliability of frequency.
It's not even frequency. I don't care if you put out 10 or 20 or 73 news segments a month - I just want to see it at the same time, at 6pm.
So be reliable.
If you're going to write a newsletter, the first thing you need to know is that it needs to be published on a pre-fixed schedule from now till 2025.
If you're going to post a video on YouTube, then heck yeah, plan for 2025 too. It doesn't matter if newsletters or YouTube will exist or change in the years to come.
What's important is that you've created a channel. And you're the newsreader. And you jolly well show up, or I - the customer - am leaving you for another more reliable channel.
And it's not just your credibility that takes a beating; it's also your sales.
And not just your sales, but also your pipeline of new customers.
And not just your pipeline of new customers, but also return customers.
Your whole darned business really depends on the reliability of frequency.
Why?
Because if you don't show up, the customer's memory of you gets increasingly blurry. And that's only one part of the problem.
The other part is that if you don't show up and the customer wants to buy your product or service, they'll buy it anyway. They won't go searching for your precious website, blog or whatever. And contrary to what you think, customers won't put the money aside in the bank either, while waiting for your majesty to arrive.
Nope, they'll just find what suits their needs and buy it right away.
Remember the time you bought an iTunes album, just because you got the newsletter?
Remember the time you bought something online just because you saw the video?
Remember the time Oprah or someone recommended a book, and hey - you traipsed off to buy that very book?
This brings us to an important juncture: the problem with perfection.
What if you don't really like the quality of your current content?
I have news for you. You're never going to like it. Ever!
You will look at your work six months from now and the work you've done today won't be as great.
You'll look at your work two years from now and you'll wonder how you even got a single customer to respond.
If you really want to get better, you won't get better wondering how to get better. You'll get better only by doing something. You have to put out newsletter after newsletter, video after video, to get better.
So if you wait, well heck, you can wait forever and then wonder why you're not getting anywhere in a hurry. Put out what you have today, and then improve as you learn more.
Customers are always reacting to your message.
They react to your video, audio, newsletter, tweet, whatever.
They'll put up with less than polished prose, or less than sharpened video or audio, but they won't put up with "fruity frequency". They'll simply change the channel, go some place else.
And if you don't want customers to leave, you need to have a plan.
So here's your plan:
* Get started and put a schedule in place.
* Promise this schedule to your list (even if you have a list of three people).
* Get your message out on the day/days you promised.
* Remember: Reliability of frequency is everything. Quality can come later.
Sean D'Souza is chief executive of Psychotactics and is an international author and trainer.
www.psychotactics.com
