One-Minute Communications Tips Archive
August 2008
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The Power of Repetition
"What I tell you
three times is true," said the Bellman in Lewis Carroll's poem "The Hunting of
the Snark." Intentionally or not, he was expressing one of the truths of
communication. When people hear something repeatedly, they take it to be true.
In business, we
know that if we want people to see the truth in a story, we must say it again
and again. "You have to repeat yourself until you almost want to gag," says Jack
Welch, GE's former CEO.
Consumers
instinctively discount commercial messages' claims to some extent. Repeating ads
can help reduce this skepticism, and lead to something else advertisers crave —
higher recall.
Some ideas need
fewer reiterations before they "take." But these are hard to predict.
The upshot is: if
it's worth saying, it's worth saying over and over. Even a mediocre message will
have more impact than a great one if it is stated more often.
© Arun Sinha, Access Communications. Access Communications is a marketing
communications and technical writing firm based in Stamford, Connecticut, USA.
Sign up for Access Communications's One-Minute Communication Tip at http://www.AccessConsultingInc.com.
Once a month, you'll receive an actionable idea or technique on an aspect of
business communications, distilled into about 150 words.
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