Do you know the story? For sure you know. Scheherazade was a smart girl, a sultan’s wife who escaped from beheading by telling story after story during 1001 nights, never finishing a story before the night is over. Smart girl.
What is the resemblance between Scheherazade and you, an online marketer? Very simple.
Stop the story for one night and you’re dead. As simple as that.
Maybe you also know the Pavlov story, with his dog. Inconsistent feeding would have been a disaster for his experiment, don’t you think? The dog would say: “Maybe today I will stop drooling, because chances are that my Russian master will give me a spike today (“imi va da teapa” – Romanian term) again. …”
Example:
For a premium client, we had an email sending to x thousands email each day. The newsletter conversation rate on the site was 3% from the new site visitors. Everything went great. At some point, the owners started to skip the already set periodicity. If the reading percentage was very big, more than 50%, after the publishing got infrequent, the reading dropped under 5%. Just because the people gave up of the habbit of reading daily the stuff they received.
It took huge efforts for the clients to include us in their daily reading list and that habit dissipated incredible fast. Just like Scheherazade. All the effort went to the drain, just because the owner determination was not there to keep up the pace. We live in a world where attention is very scarce… Build addiction, and you will rule the world. Spoil the interest and, bye, bye…
Bloggers needs to write periodically.
Facebook community managers must write periodically.
Companies must issue periodical statements and earnings reports.
Loyalty building should continue around the clock.
Everybody loves predictability when it comes to day 2 day actions.
All brands are build with painstaking efforts. Day after day after day. Some brands lasts years (and you can hardly call those brands), others last generations. Why? Because the story is told over generations. Change the story, change the frequency, change something, and the habit of your Pavlov’s dogs/Scheherazade’s sultan/clients will change also. Not good, right?
So, you have a choice. Either you become slave to what you communicate, either you fail. Brands are build through persistence, not via chances and inconsistency. Unfortunately, most companies, even they declare they want to be consistent, they are not. They act in waves, in activation. They do not build on long term, they are interested only in the results for the last trimester. Like some CEO I once knew said: “You are as good as the results for the last trimester!”
So, take a decision and stick to it. Take the right decision.
Good luck in being a slave for yourself 🙂
PS. Even I know I should write periodically, I know, I do not always follow my own advice. I know. But I am trying…. 🙂
