A Successful Digital Marketing Plan Requires Time (and Commitment)

So you’re about to start your new digital marketing plan and are ready to see results now. After all, you want to grow your business’s online presence as fast as possible. However, digital marketing is like dieting—you want to lose 30 pounds tomorrow, not six months from now.

Dieting requires a consistent long-term commitment. We all know that you can diet for a week and not see any results. If you quit after a week or even a month, you’ll get nowhere. It doesn’t take you just a week to get out of shape. It takes months of unhealthy habits. So getting in shape takes months of reversing those bad habits.

The same is true with digital marketing. Everyone wants results right now, but it can take 6-12 months to get the results you’re hoping for. And when you put in the time and commitment, you can achieve incredible results with a digital marketing plan. To give you an idea of why digital marketing takes commitment, here are the rough timelines for two pillar aspects of digital marketing: content marketing and search engine optimization.

Content Marketing

Many studies show that content marketing can take six or more months to see significant results. Think of content marketing like sending out postcards for a huge product launch event. If you only send out 100 postcards, not many people will come. However, if you send out 100,000 postcards, you’re going to have a great event.

Many businesses feel that publishing 2-3 blog posts a month is enough. However, according to 2019 research by HubSpot companies with more than 400 blog posts get twice the traffic than those less than 400 posts. They recommend publishing 3-5 posts per week. That’s a lot of effort, and even at that rate, it can take up to a year to see significant results and two years to hit the 400-post mark. One year may sound like a long time, but it’s actually quite short if you intend to have your business for several years.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Getting the coveted number one rank on search engines can yield a 40% click-through rate. It has massive benefits, but merely trying SEO for a month or two won’t help much. A critical factor to SEO is the number of other sites that link to your website. These don’t just appear overnight, and search engines will penalize you for buying links. Therefore, many digital marketers couple their SEO efforts with content marketing. With lots of great content, people are more likely to link back to your site. That means the timetable for SEO can be similar to that of content marketing.

Search Engine Journal even published a study saying that it can take 4-6 months of consistent effort to get even just 100 organic clicks per day. It takes even more time to achieve even better results.

WEBITMD is a HubSpot agency dedicated to drive traffic, nurture leads, and convert them into sales for your business. We can help you create and execute your digital marketing plan. To learn more, schedule an exploratory phone call with WEBITMD online to talk more about how we can help your business achieve real growth.