How Long Does It Take To See Results With Inbound Marketing?

Direct advertising is a gunshot. As soon as someone sees it and wants what you have, you get results. People put their ads out for a week and if they get nothing, they often give up. The results obtained for an ad are very narrow in scope. You sell a product, or maybe more than one. But the ad has a limited effect beyond your immediate inventory. It does not always have a significant effect on your brand. 

Inbound marketing builds an impression incrementally. Once the impression is created, it will affect everything you sell and all the services you provide. The positive effect on your brand will have people searching through your organization for something they can use. Your brand becomes a source of possibilities. People will try to come to you as their needs are created.

The question of how long it takes to see results with inbound marketing is widely discussed but never clearly answered. The best answer is between 6 and 12 months. Let’s just say, it depends on a number of factors.

Elements That Affect Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

If your company already has a loyal online following, it will take less time for your inbound marketing to start producing real ROI, because it cuts out some the time you would spending trying to build your audience.

One of the wonderful effects of inbound marketing is that the helpful information and advice you give increases your search engine performance. this makes it easier for people to find you online. The more web pages and the more content you create the faster your site’s search engine performance will improve. That means you have to invest the time and energy to create regular content in order to make it work best.

The better your content is, the more it will draw prospects to your website which will eventually lead to conversions. The more organized your site is with an optimized design, it will aid in this process and accelerate conversions.

Marketing Automation Will Speed Up Inbound

There are specific techniques for improving the power of your inbound marketing. In fact, HubSpot, an inbound marketing software has created its own vocabulary which has helped to clearly define the whole process. The technology of inbound marketing is based on sound website design and marketing principles.

• Begin by establishing smart goals, goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time focused.
• Keep assessing your progress by establishing marketing dashboards that summarize your analytic metrics.
• Develop personas that depict your buyer. These are composite models of who your buyers are. Then, you can address your inbound content to them.
• Research keywords that you can include in your content that your personas are searching for. Keywords are high-ranking search words that make your website more prominent on search engines.
• Use special high-value content like e-books, videos, explanatory graphics, webinars, and etc.
• Consider marketing automation software that makes metrics and workflows easy like HubSpot or Marketo.
• Build strong landing pages, email newsletters, and segment your contact lists into important buyer populations.

It all comes back to goals; they must be clearly defined with key product indicators included from the genesis of your inbound. Are you looking for more website traffic? More sales qualified or marketing qualified leads? Maybe more email opens and an increased click through rate? Setting goals and defining metrics along the way will help you to measure progress and see your growth as it is occurring.

A detailed outline with a plan in place that is easily executable will move things along quickly. Within a few months, you will be able to determine if the direction you are going in is the right one. If it is, you can continue moving forward and if it isn’t then reevaluate the strategy and make adjustments and try again. Typically, small adjustments can produce big results.

To see true ROI, you have to be patient because depending on the industry it can take up to a year.