Some marketing can be done overnight, but most of it takes time. Why does good marketing take time? That’s a long answer and one we’ve thought about so frequently that we were able to number the reasons.

7 reasons why good marketing takes time.

1. Good marketing is specific to your goals and your brand.

At Engenius, we work with over 190 clients, and every single one of them is unique. From wastewater treatment to nuclear valve replacements to summer camps, realtors, and lawyers, we serve a variety of industries that all have different audiences and different needs. Contrary to what some may think, marketing is not one-size-fits-all and what works for one group might not work for another.

Start your project by defining your company goals and objectives. Are you hoping to hire more individuals? Are you looking to increase leads or boost sales? Are you seeking to drive brand awareness or provide more information to your audience? As you refine your company goals, begin to ask yourself how those high-level objectives translate into your digital marketing efforts.

If it’s been a while since you last defined your company goals, this part of the process could take a while. Stick with it! By identifying company-specific goals early in the process, you can structure the entire marketing initiative around the goals that define success for your organization, making your marketing effort tailored to you.

As you look into launching your marketing effort, ask yourself the following:

• What are your company goals?
• How do you want to present your company and brand to the world?
• What do you hope to accomplish with your marketing effort?
• How can we set up your organization, and this effort, for measurable success?

2. Good Marketing is strategic.

It stands to reason that if you tried to sell tickets to a soccer game at a symphony performance you might have a few people interested, but not as many as if you sold those tickets at a local sports bar. Marketing should be strategic and should help you attract the right audience, not the wrong one.

Where you place your content is critical. Simply having well-written content or creative graphics won’t guarantee success if you’re publishing content in ways (or on platforms) that don’t connect with your target audience. Review your objectives and consider what marketing methods and messages are a good fit for both your company and your intended listeners. Laying out a targeted strategy for your effort gives you a better chance of success and a more measurable outcome.

Ask yourself:

• What is my audience looking for and where are they looking for it?
• What is the best and most convenient place for my target audience to see this material?
• How might my message be helpful to my target audience?

3. Good marketing is based on research, but doesn’t feel too technical.

This may as well be Part 2 of the section above. Good marketing is strategic because it is well researched. As we’ve mentioned before, every industry is different and different industries and audiences respond to different trends. Smart marketers take the time to research marketing trends in their industry — whether that’s best practices in web design, overall industry trends (such as when people are buying in your particular industry), or historical trends.

Ask yourself:

• Are there design trends common to my industry?
• Are there marketing techniques that have success in my industry?
• What design trends are popular right now across all industries?

4. Good marketing allows time for the creative process.

Let’s be honest — we’ve all had that moment where we check our calendars and think, with an ever-increasing feeling of dread, I’m late for a deadline. It’s an awful feeling and it normally results in a desperate attempt to get all the resources and marketing collateral needed for the project as quickly as possible….which doesn’t put your marketing team in the best mood either. You feel rushed. They feel rushed. And often you’re left facing the reality that your marketing team can’t deliver what you need in the time you’re asking for it. Why? Because good marketing takes time and a bad product is often much worse for your brand than a slightly delayed launch.

Good marketing allows time for the creative process. Your marketing team should have deadlines and deliverables, but your creatives are creatives for a reason. They need space to think, design, and create — not just pressure to produce. Giving your team ample time to complete their tasks gives them the chance to reflect, edit, and adjust.

Time in the creative process also results in better, more targeted content. Building in time creates the chance to transform information and industry trends into a final product that connects users to the information they need without a loss of accuracy or intent. In other words, it gives creatives the chance to make technical content more layman-friendly to people inside and outside of your industry.

Note: Building in time for execution does not mean a total lack of schedule. Our production team, for instance, has ample time to create, but that time is structured across multiple projects. As websites move through our design process, different teammates handle their part of the creative process at different times, optimizing our team’s capacity while also encouraging creativity and inspiration across projects.

5. Good marketing sets goals and revisits them throughout the project.

Any good marketing project should be re-evaluated at the halfway point for accuracy and alignment. Different marketing projects have different timelines for creation and rollout. It’s helpful to review your project goals at various, set points throughout the project to confirm that your original objectives are still relevant to your organization. For instance, a marketing project that started in January of 2020 might have needed adjusted goals by March of 2020 when the world went digital.

Remember: Taking the time to revisit your goals increases organization alignment and can save you time, effort, and money in the long run.

6. Good marketing allows time for editing and quality control.

Your marketing efforts are the calling card of your brand and a bad place for errors. Good marketing leans heavily on quality control. Having others review written and graphical content for accuracy is crucial to creating an excellent final product. Outside eyes can often spot overlooked mistakes, typos, or inconsistencies that individuals inside the project team overlook due to their proximity.

It’s also wise to review any performance and functional aspects of a marketing initiative. Just as a misplaced comma or a misspelled word are a poor reflection of your brand, so too is a website that loads with an error code or a radio ad that plays with scratchy, difficult to hear audio. Make sure that your marketing initiative runs the way it should without issues or errors.

Tips for reviewing your marketing project:

• Have an outside person or team review your work for inconsistencies or functionality errors.
• Use a service like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor for copy edits and writing suggestions.
• Create a checklist of standard things to review and use this checklist as a quality control measure for all future projects.

7. And finally, good marketing sets the stage for any follow-up actions.

After completing a large project, it’s hard to fight the temptation to sit back, relax, and wait to see your project analytics/results. A good marketing project, however, preps your team for the next follow-up action and initiative.

At the conclusion of each project, it’s wise to review what went well and what didn’t, what future opportunities exist for that project, and when the next one might start.

You made it to the end!

Good marketing takes time. It’s more than just designing a website, creating a social media post, or writing a blog. Instead, it’s a careful process of matching your organization’s proficiencies to the pain points of an outside audience. Marketing is your connection to the outside world, and what you say matters. Taking the time to do it right might cost you in speed now… but it will ultimately pay off in the long run.