How long does content marketing take to work? An introductory guide to content marketing

Every type of spend in a business has to have some sort of tangible impact to justify it. That goes double for marketing where it can be tricky to link results to activities and put a value on the investment you have made.

While it’s not a ‘dark art’, content marketing can look a bit opaque from the outside. Here’s an introductory guide to…

• What content marketing is
• How you can tell it’s working
• How long it takes to work
• How you can start to build a strategy

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is creating and sharing material online that shows off your business, product or service. It’s the best way to attract, engage and retain customers and grow your company.

Common content marketing activities include:

• Blog articles
• Social media posts
• Email campaigns and landing pages
• Brochure and guide creation
• Videos and photography
• Case studies and testimonials

…and much more. It all falls under the content marketing umbrella and it’s absolutely vital for any business in the 21st century.

Data from Hubspot shows that 90% of marketers use blogs as part of their strategy, but only 29% do so in a structured, strategic way.

When you consider also that half of all customers look at a company’s blog while making purchase decisions, it indicates that a lot of companies are missing a huge opportunity to make the most out of their blog.

That’s only one way to do it, too. For example, data from the Content Marketing Institute shows that 90% of marketers use social media in some way and 74% use email newsletters to reach customers.

There’s so much you can do that comes under the banner of ‘content marketing’, but it’s vital to make sure you’re looking at it strategically. While it’s not completely pointless to write blogs, post on socials or send out emails without an overarching plan, it definitely is not as impactful as hammering messages home consistently.

In practical terms, that means you are wasting your time and money to a certain extent – a problem for any business.

By taking a strategic approach to content marketing, you can create a series of unified messages that communicate exactly what your target customer wants to hear. A good content marketing strategy identifies peoples’ problems and shows how your product solves them.

However, a common question that we get in the industry is: how long does a content strategy take to work?

What do we mean by “work”?

There are three main purposes to content marketing which are both separate and linked:

• Building up your brand
• Generating leads
• Increasing sales

While there are lots of ways to say it and a huge amount of jargon in the industry, that’s the foundation of all content marketing. Everything you do should be measurable against one or more of those goals.

Only 41% of marketers measure the success of their content marketing through sales according to Hubspot’s State of Marketing 2024 report. However, realistically if you use content to build your brand and generate enquiries, it will naturally lead to more sales.

That’s because strategic content marketing brings in superior leads. The same report shows that 70% of marketers considered leads brought in through their strategic content to be ‘high quality’.

Put differently, if you put a strategic content plan in place, you can expect more valuable leads and fewer timewasters.

How long does a content marketing strategy take to work?

Every business is different and so every content strategy will work differently too. One constant is that the timescale for getting results is almost always months rather than weeks.

Content marketing is a long-term strategy rather than a quick win.

That realty can be discouraging in some ways. After all, you can write 10 articles today and put them all online – surely people can then read them and click tomorrow?

Technically yes, but also it can take time for search engines to rank it and put it in front of your prospective customers. Search engine authority is built over time and is the sum of all your activities – everything that gets people clicking on your site will contribute.

If you can create content which others link back to, even better! The more backlinks you get, the quicker your strategy will work.

Other factors that can make a difference include:

• Quality and consistently of the content you publish
• How competitive your industry is
• Variety of the content you publish – for example, AI content will not do well on search engines
• How hard you make your content work across all channels

It’s not an exact science, and there are many reasons that your content strategy as it is might not be working.

However, if you get a good plan in place and back it with resources, time and effort then you give yourself a very good chance of seeing strong results for a long time to come.

Content marketing strategy basics

Once you’ve decided to invest in a content marketing strategy, the next question is where to start. The best place to begin is by defining what you want out of it, such as:

• Attract a new type of client
• Bring in more staff
• Push a particular location or product line

Those are vague starting points, but they’ll get you thinking.
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Once you have decided on your goal, you need to look at your product or service, work out how it meets that goal and then divide it up into parts or themes. For example:

• New investment property in Manchester
• A new construction product that provides architects with specific benefits
• Better staff conditions than your competitors

The next step is to take your overarching themes and break them down into parts. How exactly does your product or service help a customer? Why should they choose you?

You’re selling a new property in Manchester which benefits from:

• Lower price point than competitors
• Great location with lots of connectivity
• Great amenities in the building

Those strands become themes which you can build campaigns around. For each benefit, you can create:

• A blog post
• A series of social posts
• Video content
• Email campaign

And make sure that message is hammered home to your potential customers. Even better, you can plan it all out so that each week is built around a different benefit.

This ensures coherency and consistency of message across all platforms. It also means that people will really get the point you are trying to make and understand why they should buy with you. A content strategy where each element supports the whole structure is the key.

That’s just one way to think about a content marketing strategy – and it’s a basic one at that!

However, by bringing in an expert content writer and strategist, you can take a highly detailed look at your sales strategy and create plans which will play to the strengths of your company and product.

This is an investment in your business like any other and one which will pay dividends for a long time to come.
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Contact me today if you need a hand!