The Seven Hour Rule

We’ve been attending a two day workshop in London with someone who really knows and understands The Seven Hour Rule – Daniel Priestley.  In fact he wrote about the seven hour rule as early as June 2010 (that’s 5 years ago as you read this article)

He had already created what we know to be 7 hours of content that can be consumed prior to making a buying decision because he spotted the trend as far back as 2007 when social media was in it’s infancy and thank goodness we listened to him then!

Why is The Seven Hour Rule important to you?

If you are an entrepreneur or wannabe entrepreneur and you are reading this it’s very important to you because people are not just going to drop by your website and buy your stuff.  They are not going to have one interaction with you on Facebook and buy your stuff.  They are not even going to watch one video and buy from you.  This is probably hard to digest if you have been educated in the old ways of marketing but let us tell you from first hand experience – people want to know a lot more about you way before they decide to buy so taking time to create 7 hours of collateral is going to serve you very well.

The way we applied the seven hour rule when we got started was to create key social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, slideshare, blogs etc and post good content and grow a following.  These days you have even more options so just choose what fits you best.

You need to be creating enough content to keep a potential buyer engrossed in your content for a very minimum of seven hours – hence always think the seven hour rule!

“Big decisions take 7 hours.
Whether you are buying a new car, making a new career move, engaging a consultant or choosing an annual holiday destination, if you add up all the time you spend thinking about it, you can be fairly sure it totals more than seven hours.

Something magical happens after seven hours. If you have invested seven hours in getting to know a person or a topic its only because you have established a high degree of relevance, emotional connection, trust, rapport, understanding and even bonding to the person or idea.

If you hadn’t you wouldn’t have come close to hitting the seven hour mark… ” Daniel Priestley

He goes on to say that if you are selling something where someone is going to make a significant investment then being able to know about you is a critical element of your marketing and you had better make sure you are creating consumable content – blogs, articles, videos, podcasts, presentations, etc.

If people read your blogs, watch your YouTube Channel, listen to your podcasts, follow your tweets its as good as sitting face to face – it’s as if they had met you in real life even though they are consuming digital media.  With more and more ways to do this with live streaming it’s going to become even more significant – look you can steam live from your smart phone now with apps like Meerkat and Periscope.  The marketing world is changing and you as an entrepreneur need to be moving with the times to stay ahead.

Basically if you are to fulfill the seven hour rule you had better make sure you are producing a whole day of consumable digital content across the internet!

Importantly though that content needs to be congruent with who you are, what your business is and who are your target audience.  We wrote about this here

The Seven Hour Rule is not fiction.  It’s not made up.  In fact it’s backed up by Google – the largest search engine in the world – they have studied this and proved it.

It’s called ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth) and there’s a great video which explains how shoppers approach decision making and what marketers can do to win in this changing world

You can choose to embrace the seven hour rule or ignore it at your peril!

Personally we are forever grateful we listened and took great advice when we did.

You can read Daniel Priestley’s books and get a real feel for the thought leader that he is and why as an entrepreneur you should get to know him.

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