Why your readers need more touches

Reading time: About 1.5 minutes

If you think your yearly publication is going to be able to change anyone’s mind, think again! Here’s why your readers need more touches…

Clients sometimes ask me to produce yearly or quarterly publications for them. Unless they’re asking for an annual report (or a mini-report tied to the release of their financials) I usually try to talk them out of the idea. Here’s why:

Yearly or quarterly publications aren’t nearly frequent enough. In my view, they usually aren’t worth the money it costs to produce them.

If you’re trying to persuade your readers about the importance of your company or service — or about the value of a public effort you’re undertaking — you need to stay on readers’ radar screens. Communicating four times a year (or, worse, once) just won’t accomplish that.

People are impressed by the number of “touches” they receive from you. Marketing research shows that people require somewhere between seven and 30 touches (the number vary with the type of business or industry) before they’ll buy. I believe they need an equal number of touches to be persuaded by any case or argument you want to make to them.

You want a new bike lane? You want permission to change some public rules? You want a tax break? You need to provide cogent arguments for this at least once a month. I know this sounds like a lot of work, and it is.

But it may not be as difficult as you think. For example, examine the length of that yearly publication you’ve been planning. You may be able to take exactly the same number of words and split them into multiples. For example, if you have 4,200 words of text, sub-divide that into 12 articles of 350 word each and, voila, you’ll have a monthly newsletter.

Think: multiple touches. The more you touch readers, the bigger your chances of success.

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