Not everything is meant to click today
Writing a weekly newsletter has taught me an unexpected lesson.
Deciding whether an idea has already had its moment or whether it would benefit from additional consideration.
There are times when I sit down to write and wonder whether a particular theme has already been explored enough. I am certainly not devoid of ideas, perspectives and anecdotes, but I do find myself wondering whether readers are looking for something completely fresh each week.
The more I have reflected on this, the more I’ve come to realise that perhaps I have been asking the wrong question. Maybe the question is not whether an idea has been said before.
Maybe it’s whether someone is ready to hear it.
We often think of communication as something that happens the moment words are spoken or shared. An email sent. A presentation delivered. A conversation takes place. A newsletter lands in someone’s inbox.
Information has been shared, so communication has happened.
But, has it?
When ideas find their moment
One of the fascinating and more rewarding things about teaching is that you quickly realise that hearing and understanding are two different things.
You can explain the same concept ten times.
For one person, it will click immediately. For another, it may not make sense until months or even years later.
Ideas do not typically become meaningful the first time we encounter them. In many aspects of life. Advice that was once banked and felt obvious can suddenly become profound because our circumstances have changed. A conversation that seemed unremarkable at the time can return years later with a clarity it never had before.
What was said hasn’t changed. The person taking action from them has.
The thought has stayed with me because I believe that businesses face exactly the same challenge.
The right time belongs to the recipient
In recent weeks, I have re-heard a marketing principle that most marketers will have encountered at some point in their career: “The right message, to the right person, at the right time, through the right channel”.
It’s a principle that has guided versions of marketing strategies for decades. And it does have its uses.
Yet I wonder whether we’ve continued to interpret one part of it too narrowly.
We often think of “the right time” as the perfect moment in a customer journey. Something that we control. The right campaign. The right buying signal. The right point in the customer journey where they visit a website, download a guide, or start comparing suppliers.
Increasingly, I think it means something much more human.
The right time belongs to the customer, not the business.
It is often the moment someone is finally ready to hear (and understand) what you’ve been saying all along.
Perhaps that is why one conversation changes everything, while ten previous conversations appeared to change nothing. Why a campaign that seemed to fall flat quietly influences a decision months later. Or why a recommendation initially rejected eventually becomes the chosen direction.
The message may not have changed.
Their readiness did.
Good communication is not only about finding the right words. It is about recognising that people receive those same words differently depending on where they are in their own journey.
I was reminded of this earlier this week when I heard someone suggest that the average sale now requires around fifty touchpoints. Fifty.
My first thought wasn’t: how do you create fifty different messages? It was, how can you provide the same information and say the same message in fifty different ways? What if these interactions are simply different opportunities for the same idea to become meaningful?
Some ideas need longer than we think
The human default is to assume that people ignored the message.
Sometimes, they were simply not ready to hear it.
We become discouraged too quickly. Expecting today’s effort to produce today’s outcome. In reality, however, today’s conversation could be the catalyst that propels next year’s decision.
Many of the most important decisions we make are rarely the product of a single interaction. They are the accumulation of dozens of conversations, observations, and experiences that eventually reach a tipping point.
That is true in marketing.
That is true in leadership.
That is true in life more broadly.
Perhaps the real skill when it comes to marketing and communication is not about delivering the right message at the right time. It about being present when the timing finally becomes right for someone else.
Customers don’t always buy when we are ready to sell.
Perhaps the message needed to be said in a different moment, and in a slightly different way. Perhaps it needs to be repeated for it to stick, and then click.
Understanding depends on context. Not ours. Our customers.
The mistake is not in repeating the message.
The mistake is in assuming that because it didn’t land today, it never will.
When marketing in your organisation feels busy but not effective, you are not alone. There is usually a deeper challenge in how marketing is being understood.
The Intuitive Marketing Coach is written for people trying to move beyond activity, assumptions, and box-ticking, towards something more deliberate, valued, and commercially effective. It explores a more intuitive approach to business. One grounded in better judgement, clearer thinking, and a more considered view of what marketing is actually there to do.
If you’re trying to move beyond activity and towards something more logical, intuitive, and ultimately more effective, subscribe.