The Truth about Marketing Results

One question that’s often asked about an ad campaign is always how long will it take to work? Everyone’s in a rush to see marketing results.

The minute a campaign goes live whether it is offline or online, brands that hire marketing agencies literally wait for a miracle to happen. However, that’s not how marketing works. Let’s put it this way – ‘Marketing is like an investment that takes time to deliver great results.’ Imagine you’ve invested in a real estate property. You cannot expect the prices to skyrocket the next day. It takes time and there are a lot of factors (consistently, commitment, budget) involved. Similarly, marketing must be allowed to run its course.

As marketers, we understand that you may get into panic mode if a campaign does not work instantly as you’ve invested substantial amount of money in it. However, instead of deciding to pre-maturely abandon your campaign while it is underway, just be patient.

The lesson is: Don’t stop marketing. Even if you’ve revamped your website or increased your digital footprint, it takes at least three months to see results of those efforts. The results are the best when you keep it going instead of giving up.

Types of Campaigns & their Results

• Digital Marketing Campaign: There is no magic formula to predict when digital marketing will give results. While there is no fixed number, there are benchmarks to help you set realistic expectations. Even if you manipulate links or use black-hat SEO strategies, the results are just temporary. If you want real results, real conversions and real revenue, you will have to wait. It also depends on several factors such as where you start, your competitors and focus areas. In order to lead audiences to your website, you will have to get your brand in front of your audience and improve search rankings through inbound links. Even after doing this, it will take at least six months to achieve sustained traffic increases.
• Paper cup branding campaign: While any marketing campaign takes time to show results, a way to instantly get customers is by advertising on a paper cup. Humans are drawn to anything offering a discount, a freebie or a chance to win a prize. So why not sweeten the deal further by having a coupon code or QR code on your paper cups. When a paper cup bears a voucher or coupon, people hold on to it. This serves as a lasting reminder to visit your company. If the coupon promises something for free, they may decide to use it immediately and that’s how you’ve earned yourself a customer instantly. With coupon cup branding, the possibilities are endless. A branded paper cup provides an element of exposure no billboard or brochure can match. Coupons make it more than just a hot drink as it cannot be switched off, blocked or skipped.

Therefore, the length of time you need to wait to see marketing results from a campaign depends on various factors such as frequency of the advertisement and viewer’s engagement or awareness with the brand.

The type of product or service you are selling is also an important factor that determines the effectiveness of a campaign. For items that people are interested in, showing the ad few times is enough while for more complex products, a relatively lengthy campaign will be fruitful.

When you see the response to your ad campaign declining, it means your target group has reached a stage of ‘ad fatigue’.

Thus, cup branding is the answer to convert regular tea breaks at offices and colleges into a sales opportunity.