Why Is My Marketing Taking So Long To Work – And What I Can Do About It

If you expect your digital marketing efforts to pay off immediately, you'll almost certainly be disappointed. It can take time for online marketing activities to yield results. Let's examine why you might not be getting the instant responses you'd hoped for and how you can improve the situation.

Which Factors Can Affect The Speed With Which You Get Results?

1) The Nature Of Your Business

If you're working within a niche sector, fewer people will be in the market to buy your goods or services. Therefore, you're unlikely to get large numbers of enquiries the second you embark on digital marketing. On the other hand, if you're running a business in a competitive sector, you may find that your marketing takes a while to work, as you'll have to fight to stand out from the crowd.

It's also important to consider the timing of your online campaigns. While it’s tempting to engage in digital marketing activities when you're experiencing a lull in business, you won't get prompt results if people aren't looking for your products or services at that time of year.

2) The Way That Search Engines Work

If you've launched a new website or blog, or upgraded your existing site, you probably won't see extra traffic straightaway. Firstly, the search engines' spiders will need to find any new content that you've published and index those pages. Secondly, Google takes a range of factors into consideration when deciding where to place websites in its search engine results pages (SERPs). These include a site's authoritativeness and the number of high-quality backlinks to it. Therefore, while it's still possible that your new site will attract visitors quickly, you should give it a minimum of 8 weeks to 3 months.

3) How Social Media Functions

While it's easy to set up accounts on most social media platforms, the first posts you make aren't likely to generate a huge response. The key to success when using this marketing channel is to build a following of people in your target market – and that will take time. If you keep publishing engaging content and you interact with other users regularly, however, your number of followers will steadily increase. Aim to create a community of people who will engage with your brand rather than simply focussing on the amount of likes or followers.

Are There Any Performance-Boosting Tactics You Can Use?

Plan your marketing activities properly and ensure that they're integrated seamlessly. If you do this, you won't need to get results as quickly from individual tactics, as you'll always have something going on. Set ambitious but achievable goals based on previous response levels and times, and build your business gradually. View each campaign's results as part of the bigger picture, and you may realise that you're having more success than you first thought.

Find Out More

Creating buyer personas (fictional profiles of the ideal customers that you want to attract) can give you insight into how people in your target market like to be approached. Consider taking advice from a business growth specialist like JDR. We can help you spot any issues with the methods that you're using and create an effective digital marketing plan, tailored to your goals.

Image source: Pixabay