When will you see results from your inbound marketing campaign?

Running an inbound marketing campaign is a little like gardening. You plant seeds in fertile soil, and then have to water, prune and nurture them as tiny plants start to grow. In time, an inbound marketing campaign can be a mighty oak with strong roots and plenty of leaves – but you have to have patience. As a result, the top reason companies give up on inbound marketing is due to the length of time it takes.

The times are changing, outbound is outdated and in some cases, can be potentially dangerous for your brand financially and in a reputational sense. With inbound, you can get the best from your leads. Read our blog 'How to create the ultimate inbound marketing strategy' for more information.

Here’s why you need to sit tight and wait it out with an expert inbound marketing agency.

Finding the right inbound marketing agency

Mastering a craft doesn’t happen overnight. When it comes to managing your first inbound marketing campaign, chances are high that it won’t be perfect. Finding your tone of voice, assessing your audience needs and creating a competitive edge all takes time and practice.

Similarly, even starting work with an inbound marketing agency can take some time. It may be frustrating spending the first month of your new partnership on the ‘getting to know you’ phase, but this foundation work is essential for positive results in the long term.

However, if your agency doesn’t take the time to perform this preparation, you may suffer later down the line. Content may be created which doesn’t reflect your company’s values or your customers’ pains. The later you discover this, the worse the problems are likely to be. 

Some companies are also concerned about finding an inbound marketing agency with the right cultural fit. Assessing professional capabilities is one thing, but finding the right personality fit is quite another. You’ll be spending plenty of time working with your agency, so it’s well worth finding an ideal partner. 

Constructing the perfect inbound marketing campaign

Creating a carefully crafted inbound marketing campaign doesn’t happen overnight. There’s a lot of work involved in publishing a steady flow of content, and it takes plenty of time too. Perhaps you create one downloadable guide every quarter – while this will involve plenty of work, you’ll only end up with four downloads at the end of it all.

But don’t despair. While there’s no hard and fast rule, it generally doesn’t pay to churn out uninspired and repetitive content. Good content acts like a snowball - often starting on a slow journey, but picking up speed and growing as time goes on. Meanwhile, clickbait content is like a hailstone, travelling fast to create a more immediate but short lived effect. 

While it can be tempting to publish clickbait in order to lure readers to your website, it isn’t the best long term solution. In addition, it’s unlikely to convert visitors into valuable leads, which is what any good inbound marketing agency will focus on.

Building up authority 

So you’ve written a blog, stuffed to the gills with keywords, and you’ve pressed publish. You’re refreshing the first page of a Google search repeatedly, but your blog doesn’t show. What gives?

Google is a giant of the internet, and we mere mortals are at the mercy of its algorithms.  While many SEO experts may claim to know all sorts of insider information - they don’t. Google isn’t going to magically zap you to the top of the content pile.

However, there are some best practices that can help. For instance, websites with blogs get an average of 434% more indexed pages. Proof that a content-led inbound marketing campaign can build site authority and make Google sit up and take notice.

Nurturing your leads

A cleverly constructed inbound marketing campaign will nurture leads down the marketing funnel, and give your sales team an important advantage by collecting valuable information. However, the whole point of lead nurturing is going at a pace that suits the lead - so it can sometimes take a fair amount of time before they become customers.

However, you’re much more likely to close business when your marketing is genuinely helpful and unobtrusive. You’ll also do yourself a favour in regards to your professional reputation.

Analysing performance 

The beauty of being an inbound marketing agency is the fact we have superpowers. No, really. We measure pretty much everything, from blog views and retweets to email opens and lead submissions. This data can then be used to tap into the minds of your leads.

However, inbound analysis can take time – especially if you don’t have HubSpot on your side. Rather than barrelling ahead with a static plan, we analyse performance on an ongoing basis, and adjust accordingly.

In the long term, you’ll learn plenty and achieve the best possible results for your company - but it’s a learning process. Beware of any inbound marketing agency that promises fantastical results within days - unrealistic expectations can set you up for disappointment. 

Patience is a virtue

Before your company moves forward with an inbound marketing campaign, it’s essential to understand that results will come given time, and they should be well worth the wait.

After all, inbound marketing lasts forever. Once you create a piece of great content, it can be shared, used and loved by lead after lead after lead.

Interested in learning more? Six & Flow is a Manchester inbound marketing agency with clients based all around the UK. Get in touch and ask us how we can help your company.

The times are changing, outbound is outdated and in some cases, can be potentially dangerous for your brand financially and in a reputational sense. With inbound, you can get the best from your leads. Read our blog 'How to create the ultimate inbound marketing strategy' for more information.