The Power of Repetition in Small Business Marketing

Small business owners, if you feel like you are constantly repeating the same messages in your marketing - good!

In this week’s episode of the Small Owned Business (S.O.B.) Marketing podcast, we are talking about repetition and why it is NOT annoying, but instead plays an important role in marketing.

Reinforcing messaging, building brand awareness, and encouraging customer action are just a few ways repetition can help your marketing.

Have you noticed repetition within your small business’s marketing? Share your experience in the comments!

Have a question you want answered on the S.O.B. Marketing podcast? You can leave it in the comments or send us an email at Help@TheSeasonedMarketer.com.

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Chapters:

00:00 Thank You For Listening & Please Leave us a 5 Star Review

02:41 The Importance of Repetition in Marketing

13:39 Understanding Touch Points and 7-11-4 Rule

22:59 Real Life Examples of Repetition

29:09 TLDL: Key Takeaways on Repetition in Small Business Marketing

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Episode Transcripts: https://sobmarketing.com/blog

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*Pre-Episode Clip*
Vivian: You guys put so much sweat and tears into stuff. You are doing a disservice if you are not out there repeating yourself.

*Intro* Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...

Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.

Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.

Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.

*Beginning of Episode*

Vivian: Welcome back you little SOB's, small owned businesses. Chelsea's eyes got really big. We are back for another episode of the SOB Marketing Podcast. Y'all, if you're new around here, all we do is talk shop. Not car shop. We talk marketing. All things marketing to help you promote your small business, especially because we know that a lot of you, even if you think you want to outsource some part of your marketing, in 2025, you got to handle a lot of it in-house. We just want to provide you guys ideas, topics, research, information that we have gained over the last 15 plus years as, well way over 15 years now for me, as marketing professionals. That way you guys aren't having to make these mistakes, right? We're cutting and saving you time on that end.
Friendly reminder, we have a TLDL section. Every episode we do this thing where if you are in a rush, in a hurry, cause you're a busy small business owner, you can go to the TLDL chapter at the end of this episode. Chelsea will give you a quick rundown of what we talked about today. Then we always highly encourage you to come back and listen to the full length episode because context y'all, you need the conversation to kind of understand it a little better. Also, if you haven't hit subscribe, hit follow. Yeah, be sure leave a review. Leave a review. Tell people about your SOB marketing besties over here. We're trying to build a cult. We're working really hard, a cult for good, not for bad.

Chelsea: Yes, not for bad. We would never.

Vivian: Yeah, that's right. So Chelsea, what topic are we going to be covering today in the marketing world?

Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, today we are talking about something that we've talked about before, which is repetition. So we're repeating this conversation.
Today's conversation is going to be about repetition and why it is so important in marketing. Y'all, I know you feel like you're saying the same thing over and over again, and it feels exhausting. That's how marketing works. Unfortunately, it's all about reminding people constantly of your business, of your brand. Y'all, why do you think we come on here every single week and say, leave us a review?

Vivian: To get on your nerves. No. We're going to start this conversation by just putting this out there. Repetition is not annoying. We're going to tell you why it's not annoying and why it's actually probably the best thing you can do as a small business owner because y'all have got to quit assuming that people see and engage and digest every single little thing you put out there. I hate to spoil it for you. They don't.

Chelsea: Well, let's be honest, y'all. The only person who is always interacting with your content is you.

Vivian: Your mom.

Chelsea: You know what? That's true. Yes. And your mother. Yes.

Vivian: Shout out to Reina. Thank you for listening, mom. We love you.

Chelsea: Thanks, mom. Love you. Thanks for leaving that review. Actually, I don't think she left her review. Mom, what's that about?
But my point stands, okay, you and your mom are the only two that consume all of your content. Everyone else...

Vivian: Poor moms.

Chelsea: I know, right? What if you're making bad content and your mom just has to constantly consume the bad content? That sucks. My point is no one is consuming all of your content.
Think about how often you as a consumer don't see a business's content that you love. You like miss something. The way these platforms work, the way that life works, no one's going to be able to see everything you do at all times. Your repetition is not repetitive because no one's consuming it constantly enough for it to be repetitive. Except for you.

Vivian: Well, and so let's give some structure to this conversation, Chelsea. In this episode, how are we going to talk about repetition? So I know maybe first let's, we've already kind of started in, let's finish the conversation on the reasons your repetition is not annoying, right? Then what do you want to move into?

Chelsea: Then we're going to talk about why it's actually really important to be repetitive. Because it is.

Vivian: Perfect. In there, we're also going to talk about the, what's the rule we're going to talk about?

Chelsea: We're going to talk about 1: the seven to eight touch points and 2: the seven, eleven, four rule.

Vivian: Seven, eleven, four. Do you guys know about that? It's a rule.

Chelsea: It's a rule that people don't talk about.

Vivian: I know, right?

Chelsea: We'll get into that conversation when we get into that conversation. I want to stick to why repetition is not actually annoying.

Vivian: Annoying. Well, can I put a fine point on something you were just talking about? Chelsea mentioned this very casually. She said, people are not seeing everything that you're putting out there. These algorithms, these platforms don't do that. Okay.
Two things to that platform conversation. One, just a reminder that a person who loves TikTok is not going to be the same person sometimes that loves Instagram. That's not going to be the same person that likes Pinterest or LinkedIn or Facebook. Everybody has preferences in the platforms that they use. Therefore, if you post a video on TikTok, but I prefer to just be on Instagram all day long, but I like following your Instagram page, then that means that I didn't see your TikTok and you're not being repetitive to me on Instagram, because I just don't cross over that way.

Chelsea: Yeah, there's no crossover.

Vivian: Yeah, there are instances where that is the case. So yeah, you might have a small percentage of that, but I promise you if someone has decided to follow you, they don't care that you're repeating a video or you're repeating the message. The other thing I want to say is these platforms, even if Chelsea is following a certain business on Instagram, she's not seeing every single post or every single reel.
The algorithm we already know and you small business owners have told us yourself, you're fed up with it. You don't like it. But that's what these algorithms are doing. They're always testing new things out, which means that one month Chelsea might not see half the stuff from a business that she's actually following.

Chelsea: Half the time I don't see the stuff I post on The Seasoned Marketer.

Vivian: All of that just to say it is okay for you to repeat a message, a promotion or an idea.

Chelsea: That's what I was going to say earlier and I'm glad you clarified. When we say repetition, we mean you're repeating a message or you're repeating the content or you're repeating like you just said.

Vivian: You don't have to literally just take the same video and plaster it across. That's not the type of repetition we're talking about. We're talking about, we know that sometimes you guys feel like, "Oh my gosh, do I have to talk about the SOB community that we have opened again, right"? That's $50 a month that you guys can join today if you want by going to www.Skool.com/sob.
You're sometimes thinking I'm on there promoting my sale AGAIN. I'm on there reminding people that we're having this open house. We get it. You feel like you sound like a broken record, but you do not.

Chelsea: Yes, also. Let's say on the off-chance, I have an example. Let's say there's a very small percentage of people that are getting annoyed with your repetition, okay? Those people are not going to be consumers. They're not going to be the people who interact and who purchase something from your brand. They're just haters, let's be honest.

Vivian: You know what's funny is, I actually had the idea of starting this episode with, because you had posted a story on your personal Instagram. That was a metal, rock girl. She was like, this song is for all my haters.

Chelsea: No, no, no. It was Courtney LaPLante. Okay. From Spiritbox. She said "this song goes out to everybody I hate".

Vivian: Okay. So not to all her haters, but just everybody she hates.

Chelsea: Everybody she hates.

Vivian: Well, I was going to do our version of it, which is this podcast episode goes out to all our haters because I know you're listening. Y'all, my list of haters is very short, I think.

Chelsea: What if we had like a long list of haters?

Vivian: Okay, so next time we're going to add an easel right here and we're just going to keep a tally.

Chelsea: We're going to start a tally, people who hate us.

Vivian: We're putting your first and last names on there, y'all.

Chelsea: She said do it. She said try us.
My example for repetition and people getting annoyed with it is, I listen to Legends of Avantris on YouTube. It's a D&D podcast, y'all.
They started, they did a Kickstarter called The Crooked Moon. They're hardcore promoting it, right? Like that's their baby. That's their whole thing. They created an entire, like that's a lot of work. A D &D world, a lot of work.

Vivian: Also tied to their livelihood, correct?

Chelsea: Yes. It's the way they make money. So they're pushing it real hard and they started, like you just did with the SOB community. They're being immersive about it too. At the beginning of every episode, they read comments...

Vivian: From haters?

Chelsea: Well, no, not necessarily. They just pick their favorite comments from last week's video. They picked one where it was someone saying, "we get it. Your Kickstarter isn't doing good. Stop with this immersive stuff. We don't want to hear it anymore". They made it, they turned it into a joke. They're like, yeah, this goes out to all our haters and stuff like that. It could be that people are getting annoyed. They're not your target audience.

Vivian: Yeah. I think really the crux of it all too is as Chelsea just mentioned, I'm going to give you a little tough love. You guys did not go into business to not make money. If you wanted to do that, you would have just picked a hobby and gone with it.
But the moment you decided, I am going to create an LLC, I am going to start to sell a product, I'm going to start to offer a service, you have to be sure that you are taking care of yourself in the sense that the time that you are investing in this, you're getting back at least double, triple, right? You're in business. Nobody faults you for that.
You guys put so much sweat and tears into stuff, you're doing a disservice if you are not out there repeating yourself. All right, because the person, I don't know about you guys, I'm very busy. I have a lot of stuff going on. You tell me something one time, you're probably going to have to tell me again two to three more times. So that way I'm like, yeah, by the way, I want to go to this event. Yeah, I've been meaning to buy this thing on Amazon or, well, Amazon's a bad thing. I shouldn't buy anything off Amazon. Bad example there. Well, I have been looking at some stuff on Amazon, so I can tell on myself. Go ahead.

Chelsea: Girl, absolutely not. We don't buy stuff from Amazon.

Vivian: So let me just quickly sum it up like this. Don't confuse people being distracted as people being disinterested. Life is busy, especially we don't have children, to you mom and dad's out there that are dealing with kids and going to work and trying to run a business and doing all that stuff, more power to you. You're distracted. You have a lot going on. That doesn't mean you're disinterested in what somebody is selling or what someone's message is. It's just that you need to see it several times before it sinks in or it cuts through all that busy-ness that you have going on.

Chelsea: Well, yeah, I mean, this comes back to people need to interact with your business seven to eight times. You need seven to eight touch points before someone is going to be willing to actually make a purchase with you.
Which I think Vivian, now that we're kind of moving into why repetition is important and why it matters, and since we just said the seven to eight touch points thing, can we talk about the 7-11-4 rule? Let's hear it.

Vivian: Okay, the seven, eleven, four rule. Chelsea and I were talking about this earlier and she was like, why do we never talk about this rule? We always hear the seven to eight touch points, right? You have to have seven to eight touch points with your business before someone decides to shell out money and buy from you. This rule is a little different because it's coming directly from Google. Google, obviously you guys know because they sneaky, sneaky, they are getting all this research on consumers, on how people buy. They have found that when it comes to video specifically, that people need seven hours of content consumed, 11 touch points with your business on four separate locations. Okay. So what does that translate to you, Chelsea? What does that mean? Like in layman's terms?

Chelsea: So in layman's terms, this means if you're on YouTube, and on social media and you have a website. Let's say you're on Facebook and Instagram. For someone to be ready to interact with your brand and ready to make a purchase from you, they need to consume seven hours of the content you're creating.

Vivian: So that might be seven hours worth of combined long form YouTube videos plus the three minute reels that you're doing, plus that video that you have posted on your website.

Chelsea: So it combines to seven hours, 11 touch points. So that means they need to be interacting with you 11 different times again across four platforms.

Vivian: Yeah. So whether that be website, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, whether that be Google, you know, whatever those are. It's just in four different versions, ways. I think what was kind of tripping us up, and the conclusion we came to is specifically because we always hear the seven to eight touch points for marketing in general. We were like, why are they saying 11 touch points? But remember, we said this is video specific.
So it may be that when it comes to video content, people are just needing a little more of that repetition in order for it to stick in their head.

Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. But this is just another reiteration that you need to be repetitive and need to be constantly making those connections with your target audience.

Vivian: I think this also brings something else up. When I listen to statistics like this, I think what it definitely does is it leans into what we always tell you guys, which is, listen, we're never going to give you some secret formula or potion. I mean, Chelsea likes making potions, but she ain't going to tell you her formula, her recipe.

Chelsea: Yeah, don't worry about it.

Vivian: But there is no quick way for you to create a solid relationship with somebody. These metrics should all tell you that basically at the end of the day, what it is, is your marketing needs to be a long-term approach. It's not a one and done. Somebody is not going to buy from you just because they saw a 10 second reel. Maybe if you go viral, that could happen, but what's the probability of that? Also, the end goal is not just a one-time purchase, it's a repeat purchase. The only way you're going to build that up is through that long-term relationship.

Chelsea: Repetition is all about building your brand awareness. It's building those connections because the whole point of marketing is to create a relationship.
I also want to mention that repetition is going to help you reinforce your messaging, so people know what your business is about. It's going to help you with consistency because if you are being repetitive, that helps you stay consistent with what you want to say. Your messaging, y'all, should not switch up that much.

Vivian: I love that approach. Why make it harder on yourself, you guys? Have four to five bullet points of things that you're always sticking to. I guess that's the repetition part of it too. We mentioned this a little earlier. Repetition does not mean being repetitive. I that sounds bad, but what it means is taking the idea and being sure that you're communicating whatever base idea you have over and over again, but that can come in many different forms.

Chelsea: So when Vivian and I talk about the SOB community, we're not always saying the exact same words, but we're always hitting on the exact same points.
We're always saying you get to be a part of the community of other small business owners. You get an hour long zoom call every single week.

Vivian: You get access to an online forum, but we can say all those things in different ways.

Chelsea: Your messaging, when I say your messaging is going to become consistent, I don't mean you're going to say the same thing over and over again. I mean, you're going to make sure you're always hitting the important bullet points so you're not leaving out valuable information.

Vivian: You know what that kind of got me thinking just now? I wonder how many of us are scared of repetition or we give it a bad name because we think it's *Vivian tries to snore* boring. That was supposed to be a snore by the way. I don't know why that sounded like that.

Chelsea: I thought you were trying to be Lord Voldemort or something. Like I thought that's what you were going for.

Vivian: I was trying to do a snoring sound effect. That wasn't very good. But it's fine. Why don't you put one right here? *quality snore sound effect* This is what it was supposed to sound like.

Chelsea: Why were we pointing? It's audio. It's fine. Yes. That's 100 % what it is. We find it boring because we are constantly listening to the same thing. Right.
That's why at the beginning of this episode, we want to hit home so much that you're the only one that's getting tired of it because you're the only one who's constantly hearing it.

Vivian: So what I was saying though is, okay, rise up to the challenge, my very creative people.

Chelsea: *laughing* No, no, no, I'm sorry. No, it was good. Go ahead.

Vivian: Yeah, rise up to the challenge, my very creative small business owners. I have complete confidence in you that you can figure out 20 different ways to say the same thing. I promise you, you can, okay? So just try to be a little creative with it. If you are getting tired of it because you think it's boring, spice it up a little. You can relay, convey the same idea, the same benefits, the same key talking points in different ways. It just requires that you look at it from a different perspective or just think of it a little differently, right? Approach it from outside the box.

*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: I once worked with an ad agency where I had to go through and revise all their work because it would be laden with misspellings and wrong information. We were spending thousands of dollars for me to do double the work.

Vivian: Sometimes, you don’t need an ad agency - you just need resources to figure it out on your own.

Chelsea: That’s why we created the S.O.B. Community - for the small business owners who want to keep their marketing in house but still need some support.

Vivian: Get templates, courses, downloads, expert advice, weekly live calls, and a supportive group of small business owners - for just $50/month!
So head over the skool.com/sob. That's s-k-o-o-l.com/sob, all lowercase. Join today and feel confident in your marketing.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*

Vivian: Can I drive this home by adding something else, you guys? Let me give you two very convenient examples. The other reason that repetition is not your enemy is because if you have a different type of an idea or you're selling a product or a service that people are just not familiar with, okay, maybe you're not the first to do it, but maybe it just hasn't gained popularity. So you're having to do a little bit of that education part of it too. Repetition is your BFF, okay? So,
Let's take for example, Airbnb. Do you think that when Airbnb showed up on the scene that people were like, yeah, because I'm used to staying in a hotel, right? Oh yeah, let me just like stay in someone's personal home, pay them for it. That was a very weird concept to a lot of people. It took time and repetition for them to finally get the idea. Through their ads, through their website, through the messaging, drive home the point like, no, this is the new innovative way for people to actually stay with comfort. All right, for you to be able to stretch out your legs and not be confined to a one small room with two beds in it and one bathroom, okay? Instead, why not stay in this luxurious home near the water and you pay the same rates?
Very new concept that they had to reiterate time over time.
The other product that did this was Peloton. Peloton, yeah, people knew what exercise bikes were used for and the benefits to it, but their subscription that was added on top of it was a newer concept. What do you mean it's not just a bike? I can actually stream all of these classes.
That became their big selling point, right? It was the subscription part of it and joining this community of people that were all wanting to be healthy and do all that. I say all that just to tell you, you're going to have to do the repetition part if you're trying to sell a product or service that's not mainstream quite yet or that you're having to explain. We run up against this too I feel like with our SOB community. It's a membership community, but I feel like people still don't see that as an option for marketing, right? They still think, if I want to do my marketing, I have two options. I either do it myself or I outsource it to somebody. Well, there is an in-between in there, which is, hey, you do it yourself, but you get access and support to marketing professionals that help you along the way, right? So that way you're not dishing out thousands of dollars. That's where repetition for us, y'all, we're not going to be able to get sick of it.

Chelsea: Also just real quick, it encourages action over time. I wrote that in my notes and I wanted to make sure I said that because it's just real simple, real clear. It encourages action over time because it does. You need to be constantly interacting with your potential customer audience. Your potential customers slash target audience. That's what I meant to say.
I also, Vivian, my last bullet point that I want to reiterate and I want, I think is really important, repetition does not only mean social media.

Vivian: Right. Y'all, there's so much more to marketing than social media.

Chelsea: Repetition means making sure you are const, not constantly, you are consistently, that's the correct word, sending out email marketing, your email newsletters.
It means thinking about the events that you routinely participate in. Are you always at the farmer's market? That's repetition. Is there a monthly event that you host at your store? That's repetition.

Vivian: Yeah, and the repetition and consistency go hand in hand. I say it every time. I'm like, I wish I didn't use the word train, but that's exactly kind of what it is. You do have to, in a sense, train your customers, potential customers. With the examples that Chelsea just shared, those are wonderful ways to do that. You have a consistent, repetitive thing that you do every Friday in your physical store. Perfect example. We shop at EarthFare.

Chelsea: Vivian does.

Vivian: Yes, I shop at EarthFare. My husband's also a veteran. They give discounts on Sunday specifically for military. It's a repetitive thing, but I also know they've now trained me that, if I can manage to go shopping on a Sunday as opposed to Wednesday night, then I would rather do that. But these are all things that you can do to that it all goes hand in hand. It lines up nicely.
Even something as simple as, how many of you guys for your phone system, you have a phone number attached to your small business. How many of you on there have a recording that kicks in that reiterates the message that you want them to hear? There are small things like this that I think, talk about you having so much free digital real estate now and taking full advantage of that. It's the same thing with all of these other things. So think outside of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, all that.

Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, well, I think we're ready for the TLDL.

Vivian: Do it.

Chelsea: Let's do it. So if you skipped ahead to this TLDL chapter, I'm going to give you a brief summary of what we just talked about. However, when you get the chance, make sure you go back and listen to this entire conversation because that's where the good parts are, right?

Vivian: That sounded like a threat, but yes.

Chelsea: So today we talked about repetition, why it matters for your small business and why it's not annoying anyone. The only person it could possibly be annoying is you because you are the only one who always hears all of your content. It is important and matters because it reinforces your messaging. It helps you stay consistent. It helps build brand awareness. You're building connections and it encourages action over time.
Remember, it takes seven to eight touch points for people to feel comfortable enough to make a purchase with you. We also talked about the 7-11-4 rule. So if you're curious as to what that is, make sure you go back and listen to the full conversation. But really at the core of it, repetition is not hurting your small business. It is helping it. So I'm sorry that you feel like you're being repetitive and that it's annoying. Just find creative ways to share your messaging.
Also want to say before we wrap up. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this conversation was helpful, make sure you send it to another small business owner. We want to help everyone feel comfortable handling their marketing on their own. Don't forget about the SOB community where we have a group of small business owners who are looking to build their business and feel comfortable with marketing their business on their own and you get access to Vivian and I, two marketing professionals. We are there to help you. Make sure you leave a review. Pretty please. Thank you so much, and go be the best SOB you can be.

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