If you were to search for something as random as “fluffy hippo” on Google, you’d surprisingly get accurate results in less than a second. Those quick results are satisfying and something we’ve come to expect in the digital age. So, when it comes to digital marketing, it may be a natural response to assume you’d be able to see a quick ROI for your business. Unfortunately, that is usually not the case.
If you can’t expect fast results, then how long does it take for your self storage digital marketing to begin working? While it would be nice to give you a specific time frame, the actual answer is the rather annoying phrase, “it depends.” Under certain conditions, two to six months could be your answer, but it all depends on different contributing factors. Below is a breakdown of what you might expect for the different avenues of digital marketing.
SEO
Search engine optimization affects various aspects of digital marketing. When done correctly, it can speed up the time it takes for your other digital efforts to become successful. Specifically, website optimization is key to have your business rank higher in organic search results which ultimately leads to more traffic to your on-site content. That being said, SEO is most certainly an ongoing process.
After the initial planning stage, which could take about a month, the work will begin. This will include working on links, content creation, content optimization, technical optimization, and other necessary steps. Somewhere around the four-month mark, you may be able to see some improvements to site traffic and ranking. However, the optimizations will only become more effective over time. At about six months, you’ll most likely see a significant increase in effectiveness. From there, it’s a matter of tweaking things to increase results. What you see at six months will generally be less than what you see after a year.
Social Media
How long it’ll take to be effective on social media depends largely on whether you are starting from scratch or have an established network. While it only takes a couple minutes to set up a social account, you still have to build up a following. Getting people to realize you exist on a network might be the biggest challenge. It could take a while longer to build that following. If you already have followers, it can cut a considerable amount of time off the overall process.
The next factor is your strategy. A poor strategy won’t yield strong or quick results. You need to know who would be interested in your brand and cater the content to them. Also, the amount of interest in following your business could vary depending on the industry you’re in.
Expect about six months to be at the point where you’ll be able to take a step back, evaluate, and really get a feel for what is and is not working. Once again, with more time will come better results.
PPC
Out of all the digital marketing avenues, paid media seems like it would be the exception to the “it depends” rule. It might seem like a simple thing to pay to get your ad seen at the top of search results pages. But, like everything else, it takes research and time for it to work properly. You need to gather data about keywords and other important elements. Then refinement needs to take place. Success ultimately depends on the quality of your ads and how effectively you use your budget.
Expect about two to three months for a PPC campaign to really ramp up. Also, realize that the more time spent on research, optimizations, and A/B testing, the better results you will see.
Content
This is potentially the one area where you could see results the fastest. However, it still depends on how you go about producing and sharing your content. Obviously, your content needs to be useful to readers and contain enough reasons for them to justify taking five to ten minutes out of their day to spend with it. Boring content that doesn’t provide value will almost never be successful. Even if you do have great content, there still isn’t necessarily a guarantee of success.
With that being said, people are successful, and content marketing home runs are possible. Doing things like mentioning industry professionals in your posts, reaching out to them before you publish, and encouraging them to share it once you do can increase visibility. Sharing it on the various forms of social media will also help.
There is no standard or specific amount of time for digital marketing success. But speed shouldn’t be your first goal. Your goal should be effectiveness. That takes time. If you take the time to work on building a strong plan, the results you will see four, six, or 12 months down the road will be well worth the wait.
