It’s only natural to want to see results quickly from your digital marketing — after all, you’re putting your time, money and thought into it. However, when it comes to online marketing, patience really is a virtue.
According to most expert estimates, it will take between six months and one year to see results from most types of digital marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and content marketing.
Three reasons you won’t see instant results from your online marketing:
1. You need consistency to make an impression. There’s an old saying from print advertising: “It’s not the size, it’s the frequency.” In print advertising, running a smaller ad more frequently has been proven more effective than running a huge ad once. People need to see your ad multiple times before they even remember it, much less act on it.
It’s the same with online marketing. Whether it’s paid advertising or organic SEO, you need to put in consistent effort in order to get results. That means continually tweaking your marketing campaigns, including keywords, to keep pace with changes in search engine algorithms. Search engines also look for new content—so if you start a blog on your website, keeping up a consistent posting schedule is vital to getting results.
2. New leads aren’t the same as new sales. If your online marketing campaign doesn’t seem to be getting results, you may need to redefine what “results” means to you. For example, perhaps your digital marketing is bringing in lots of new leads — but they’re not converting to sales because you’re not following up with them quickly enough. Or perhaps you follow up with leads right away, but then lose track of them and forget to maintain contact. Using a lead generation partner like Web.com makes it easy to follow up on every lead. Web.com will create a campaign around your business to maximize leads, traffic and visibility, boosting your odds of making the sale. Pay-Per-Click Advertising can also boost your leads.
3. You’ve got competition. Keep in mind that unless you own a reptile store or manage a clown troupe, your business probably has plenty of competitors in your local area. Online marketing will help your business move higher up in search engine results, but moving from Page 27 of Google search results to Page 3 won’t immediately pay off in sales or even leads. For that, you’ll need to get to Page 1—and that takes time. The marketing experts at Web can help by working with you to identify your ideal customers and fine-tune your digital marketing to reach those customers.
Online marketing takes time to pay off.
But if you’re trying to do it all yourself, you’re probably making it take even longer. Chances are, you’re not an online marketing expert. Even if you are, as a busy small business owner, how much spare time do you have to devote to your digital marketing campaigns?
With all the other tasks on your plate, it’s no wonder your marketing efforts can get shortchanged when you DIY. Hiring marketing experts will definitely speed up the process compared to a DIY approach. Plus, it gives you more time to work on growing your business.
Products in this post include:
Photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash
