There’s no “one size fits all” solution for success, but one thing is for sure.

Most of the best things about your business require commitment.

Years ago, it was possible to drive immediate traffic to a website using online advertising. The landscape has shifted. Advertisers who never make any sales through platforms like Google and Apple subsidize those few who succeed. Each time their advertising standards become more complex, a larger percentage of ads fail.

Now is the time to turn your attention from advertising to marketing.

Marketing Is Your Long-Term Solution for Better Customer Relationships

Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. In contrast to the heady promise of immediate attention offered by advertising, it takes time to make a lasting impression on your audience. In the long run, though, marketing builds competitive advantages while advertising does not.

As soon as you stop paying, the benefits of advertising disappear.

Marketing, on the other hand, builds over time. That’s because marketing is versatile. It stretches, adapts, and expands to capture attention from those most likely to buy from you. No matter who they are, where they are, or how they prefer to make their buying decisions, marketing can help you make a good impression.

Where advertising is seen as interruptive and untrustworthy, marketing has the opposite effect. With modern content marketing, you can position your brand as a trustworthy source of information. That not only builds a solid foundation for a relationship, but it can shorten the time to make a decision.

This brings us to the biggest objection to marketing.

One that doesn’t have to be an objection at all.

Marketing Takes Longer Than Ever… and That Can Be a Good Thing

There’s no question about it: Marketing takes longer than advertising.

But that assumes most advertising will be successful – not true in today’s competitive digital landscape. By the time you refine your advertising to work well, it can take every bit as long. And for all the reasons we discussed, it won’t give your brand the kind of traction with your audience you really want.

So, how long does marketing take to work?

As an experienced East Coast marketing agency, we’ve seen again and again that it takes about 90 days for a new marketing campaign to find its legs. Once it gathers momentum, you can see significant improvements each month. That quickly compounds into more leads, more sales, and – vitally – deeper relationships.

Where advertising tends to focus on the value of a single transaction, marketing is the key to raising the lifetime value of every relationship you have. By crafting a marketing funnel tailored to would-be customers’ needs, you ensure that your company stays top of mind whenever they could use your products and services.

Once someone follows your social media, and especially once they join your email marketing list, they are no longer just anyone in your market. Now, you can use modern digital marketing tools to address them directly.

Even before they make their first buy with you, you can use helpful, informative content to leverage their attention into genuine trust. That’s especially important for service-based businesses whose sophisticated offerings require some explanation before a purchase can be made.

In effect, that “long” 90 days becomes part of a relationship that can last for years to come.

When you look at it that way, the wait is well worth it.

New York Ave Is Here for You With Marketing for the Long Haul

At New York Ave, we’ve helped small and mid-sized companies in dozens of industries grow and scale through marketing that’s built to last – like your business. With a trustworthy team of experts in all the most effective modern marketing techniques, you’ll always know where you stand and what comes next.

It all begins with a candid conversation about you, your brand, and your goals.

From there, we architect a plan that will get you where you want to go through a sustainable level of effort and investment. You can be as involved as you wish, including completely hands-off. We will keep you in the loop via further discussions and reports that make sense of the big picture.

Don’t look to freelancers to do your marketing – or hire robots to do a human’s job. With New York Ave, you get custom content that could only have come from your brand: Conceived, designed, and developed by the pros to make your brand message the most compelling it can be.

Just contact us today to find out more or get started.