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The Marketing Minute: Blink and You'll Miss It … and Other Problems With One-shot Marketing

One ad.
One social post.
One podcast episode.
One interview.

For some companies, marketing means picking one of these, doing it once, and calling it done. The problem is that this approach no longer reflects how audiences actually consume information, especially in technical industries.

Attention spans are short, feeds move fast, and newsletters stack up. It’s a universal truth in advertising and marketing that seeing something once is rarely enough to register, let alone remember. Yet marketing efforts are still often treated as if one appearance should do the job.

It won’t. If it did, I feel like my job would be much easier.

One Touchpoint Is Not a Strategy
One important distinction is that modern brand marketing requires repetition but not redundancy. People don’t need to see the same message copied and pasted everywhere. Rather, they need to encounter the same idea multiple times in formats that are easily accessible: an ad on a website, a social media post, a newsletter, and a podcast episode. 

It’s how recognition forms, familiarity builds, and how an audience’s mindset shifts from “I’ve seen that name before” to “I understand what they do.” A one-shot approach incorrectly assumes attention is guaranteed. In reality, attention has to be earned more than once.

Trade Show Coverage as a Real-World Example
Take trade show coverage at APEX EXPO. An interview conducted on the show floor, for example, could easily be treated as a single deliverable: Record it, post it on social media, and move on. When that happens, its lifespan is short and its impact is limited.

Instead, treat your interview as the starting point for a broader marketing sequence. Don’t let it sit still. It can reappear as video clips, social posts, and in newsletters and feature articles.

For APEX EXPO 2026, I-Connect007 uses a proven, multi-tiered approach. We:

• Conduct interviews onsite, capturing timely, relevant conversations while industry attention is highest
• Produce and publish video content on our dedicated website to deliver immediacy and credibility
• Develop editorial Q&As from those conversations, giving the ideas permanence and structure in our magazines
• Feature that coverage in our newsletters so we reach readers when they are actively looking for insight
• Manage social promotion that reinforces the message across platforms and timelines

We plan and oversee every step to build a sustained brand presence for our partners before, during, and after the show, using a combo platter of video, newsletters, social media, and feature articles.

Why Format Matters as Much as Frequency
Marketing that relies on a single appearance assumes a single audience behavior. More effective marketing accepts that audiences move fluidly and it meets them where they are. We know that not everyone engages in the same way. Some readers prefer long-form editorial, while others discover ideas through newsletters. Some engage first on social media, some listen to podcasts, and others skim transcripts.

Don’t ask: “What’s the one thing we should do?”
Instead: “How do we show up more than once, and in more than one way?”

In a world where feeds refresh faster than memory, marketing that shows up once is easy to miss, and even easier to forget. So, commit to making your marketing efforts stronger and more memorable. Your business will thank you for it.

Brittany Martin is the digital marketing manager for I-Connect007.