What does "consistent" online marketing actually look like?

If you’ve had to deal with online marketing for any length of time, you’ve probably had someone tell you: “just be consistent.” That’s for good reason: audiences, algorithms, and search engines LOVE reliability.

Search engines want to see that you’ve updated your website within the last few months. Social media algorithms show your content more often when you post regularly. Your audience likes to see you pop up in their inbox more than just once in a blue moon. 

The trouble is, a lot of us hear the word, “consistent,” and think that means daily social media posts, or constant emails, or churning out blog posts like your life depends on it. If you’re a busy leader, however, that’s precisely what you shouldn’t do.

There is such thing as marketing too much

The current information-heavy, hustle-focused culture pushes us towards Doing More all the time–creating more, sharing more, selling more. 

If you know me, you know how I feel about hustle culture, but there are some very real problems with the More More More approach.

For one: shifting from putting out marketing content even a few times a week to doing it daily calls for a big increase in time, energy, and ideas. This is true even for someone who does it professionally. That fact alone can easily make it not worth pursuing.

If you DO manage to scale up your online marketing output? If you’ve done that without committing noticeably more time, it becomes about HOW you scaled up that output. 

Basically, creating more content in the same amount of time often leads to less quality. That’s true whether you’re spending less time creating each piece of content, or using AI-generated content to fill in the gaps.

Over time, that drop in quality can kill your open and clickthrough rates in emails. 

It can obliterate your engagement rates on social, which then goes on to hurt your position with the algorithm. 

If the content isn’t quality, then it’s more likely to get skipped, ignored, and unsubscribed from.

Consistent online marketing is predictable and sustainable

If you’ve been told to “just be consistent,” you need to identify a cadence that people and algorithms can predict, where you can also create content that your audience will actually pay attention to.

If you can’t do daily posts on social media without cutting corners, dial it down to 3-4 days a week.

If you only have a good newsletter in you twice a month, commit to two sends a month, every month.

If creating one blog post a month feels good, post one every month.

Quality over quantity is always the name of the game, so be real with yourself about what’s achievable in the time that you have.

What if you really DO need to post more often?

If you haven't posted on social since last year, or you fully forgot about your email list, you're far from the only one. Part of the battle is creating the habits you need to be consistent, but content repurposing is your golden ticket to more frequent posting and more consistent, quality messaging.

If you're not sure HOW to repurpose your content, that's what I'll be teaching you on April 2nd! My Repurpose Your Content workshop covers several repurposing tactics, so you can share more often and be more visible without reinventing the wheel every time. Save your spot and join me for an awesome hour of learning.