The Most Overlooked Factor in Digital : Time

Intro

Now for a topic I feel like I will mull over often time and time again.

It’s the importance of time, especially in the context of digital strategy and effectiveness. Back in blog number 1 Why Knightlab, I mentioned that the purpose of Knightlab and the creating of articles was to offer a different perspective to how to approach marketing and digital.

This article does just that.

Once upon a time…

The internet reared its ugly juvenile head and we were introduced to dial-up connection tones and electronic mail. Fast forward some years and we now have awkward MySpace photos and a catalogue of cat videos. Fast forward again and we’re where we are now. You can do historically time-consuming things like grocery shopping, renewing your car rego, eating a restaurant quality meal, or even meet a potential lover with just a few easy clicks.

We’ve been incredibly spoiled and one of the ramifications from this is that we begin to believe anything digital is instant or costs significantly less time, effort, and money than its traditional counterparts.

This is simply not the case for digital or marketing. Not for good digital pursuits or marketing strategy anyways.

Good things take time

If there is only one thing to takeaway from this article is that everything good takes time. There’s a reason why your best relationships are typically with someone like a family member, a mate from school, or a romantic partner. It’s usually because they’re someone you’ve spent the most quality time with.

The same goes with digital strategy, the more quality time that is spent letting it unfold and engaging with your customers, the better the relationships. Simples. If there isn’t quality time for your strategy to unfold, don’t expect quality results.

Good things take time and this directly applies to the strategy behind your digital and marketing activities. If a campaign isn’t taking off initially or the website you just launched isn’t producing the results you expected, a big factor to consider is that you just need to give it some time. If the adequate amount of time isn’t given, companies run the risk of pinballing between campaigns or marketing activities that just isn’t contributing to the bigger picture.

There’s a reason why a new employee takes 3 - 6 months to fit in, learn the processes, and pass probation. It takes time before results can be seen and properly judged.

Time and time again

Time in this context can take on different meanings.

It can mean all the previous times someone has interacted with your website. It can mean time to optimise campaign tactics to get it just right. It can mean the time it takes before your messaging really sets in with your market. It could mean the time it takes for your customers to pull the trigger and get in touch.

If you potted a plant, and it wasn’t growing fast enough, you wouldn’t pull the plant out and start again. If you were in the middle of an 8-week fitness bootcamp and you weren’t losing weight or gaining muscle fast enough, you wouldn’t drastically change your routine or diet and abandon the plan entirely.

The point is ‘time’ is required for your strategy to unfold properly. Marketing (especially digital marketing) is mistakenly viewed in short-term windows that doesn’t allow for time to do its thing.

So what do you get if you mix tactics, aligned with strategy, and the right amount of time? You get brand equity. And when brand equity goes up, the time it takes for clients to engage and covert goes down.

Love you long time

Ask yourself, do you want the strategic foundation behind your digital marketing to be prosperous in the long-term or the short-term? Funnily enough when you start optimizing for the long-term, the short-term results come. The common mistake made by many when endeavouring in anything digital or marketing is that the appropriate time frames aren’t being understood.

I’ll repeat it again, everything good takes time. The same principle directly relates to your digital and marketing. If you want your strategy to return positive results and become self-sustaining you need to factor in time.

Gym boot camp programs are a minimum of 6-8 weeks. That’s because gyms know that it takes at least that amount of time before any noticeable results can be seen for them to offer the program again. There’s no such thing as a revolutionary diet or workout program, the one that garners the best results are the ones you can perform over long periods of time.

A similar approach can be taken with the digital activities that surround your strategy. It’s negligent to think that serious results can be achieved with a short-term solution. It takes time and iterations before any positive results can be received and properly judged. This is often forgotten about and marketing teams or business owners are left pivoting every couple of months chasing the latest flashy object rather than staying the course and letting their strategy unfold.

Everything good takes time. Especially when it comes to digital strategy.

Until next time.