How to Play the Long Game of Marketing for Success

Last Updated on October 24, 2024.

We’ve all thought it once or twice – “I want to go viral. I want this post to take off. Why don’t I have more traffic coming to my website?” Getting caught up in the idea of overnight success is easy, especially when it is being flashed at us from all different directions. “Why can’t I be them?!” We want to be the next big thing and achieve our goals as quickly as possible, even when we are unprepared for them.

However, marketing is not about overnight success. Business is not about overnight success. Marketing efforts are not about overnight success. It’s about a consistent, long-term effort that yields results over time, providing long-term value. 

And if you haven’t heard of it before, the “long game” is simply a metaphor for long-term planning of the bigger picture, content that will drive traffic to your site months and even years after it was posted on your site, providing compounded results and long-term growth. It refers to actions aimed at being beneficial over an extended period. We want to focus on the overall brand building so you are not focusing on quick fixes or what is the next thing that is popular because, in the long run, it will achieve better results.

Marketing is something that you are going to do until your company closes. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. So setting a good foundation and a long-term strategy that continues to generate traffic for you is the goal.

Long Game Marketing, Long-Term Success

When you want to achieve long-term success for your business, you must focus on building brand loyalty, customer experience and customer satisfaction and thinking beyond short-term sales. And putting this into perspective when it comes to your content – it sounds cliche, but your content strategy needs to have consistent valuable content that your audience can relate to, capturing the audience’s attention. Take it to the next level by pairing that with the long-term goals of your business.

One of the biggest mistakes is ignoring your business strategy and your business’s long-term goals; they should guide your marketing strategy regularly with your customer at the center. If you want to attract more customers and keep them coming back, then the best thing you can do is develop a personal relationship with them. It would be best if you thought about what they are going through in their lives and how they feel about your company’s solutions so they can find you at the right time in their lives. So be clear about your brand message, what you do, and what you offer. And follow that up with a focus on service.

And now that you are taking care of your current and potential customers, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty.

Small Business Website

Always my first go-to: make sure you have a website. Your website is your foundation as a marketer and business owner. If you don’t have one, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with customers and prospects 24/7/365 – think of it as an employee that doesn’t have a day off. If your website has all the tools it needs, that’s what it can be for you.

Keep in mind that you also have to keep your website current. This isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it; your website is never done. Ensure that your site is up-to-date and on-brand and that all the information on your site is accurate and current. If you’ve added new services or products, ensure they are reflected in your site content. Refresh your blogs with accurate information or changes of opinion. Provide both evergreen content and some timely information on your industry.

Content Creation

Content creation is part of this long-term plan. You need to focus on creating the right type of content that attracts the right kind of people — then, you have to nurture those relationships over time.

You don’t want to be famous for your blog posts the day you publish them (usually, that means something went awry.) You want them to generate traffic still five years from now when you’re getting hundreds of thousands of visitors per month from search engines.

So start a blog if you haven’t already done so, and start creating content that has real value, can help people in some way, and will position your business as an authority within your industry or niche.

And when distributing your content, optimize your channels. Be sure that the content marketing you create is optimized for the channel you distribute it on.

So yes, we need to focus on creating the right kind of content that attracts the right kind of people. We must create valuable content that speaks to our audience and gives them what they want or need. We need to optimize our channels so people can find us more easily and want to interact. And then, we need to keep track of how many people view/read our content to see what works and what doesn’t. Now how do you know what is working and what isn’t? SEO should bring traffic to your website and marketing funnels should get them to convert.

Search Engine Optimization

Regardless of your business’s industry, showing up at the top of search results can help drive traffic and sales to your site. So one of the most important parts of creating content is making sure that you are doing SEO properly. Otherwise, it will be hard for your audience to find you.

So, what is SEO? Search engine optimization helps search engines find and rank your site over millions of other sites after a user has made a search query. The more quality, relevant content you have on your site, the more likely search engines will be to rank you higher. And this helps improve your site’s visibility through organic (non-paid) searches. It’s all about ensuring they can find yours easily when Google bots crawl sites. So how do you do that?

It goes back to your overall marketing strategy. If you don’t know your target audience, it’s hard to direct your keywords and topics toward them. Create buyer personas with relevant characteristics and interests, and determine what they want to read about by researching keywords and topics that make sense for your business. Your buyer personas will allow you to provide them with the valuable content we have discussed.

That is just the tip of the iceberg for this blog, as we can discuss on-page SEO and technical SEO, but for this discussion, it is worth noting that while SEO takes time, it has one of the best ROIs in digital marketing. It’s also something that can continue to work for you long after the effort of putting it into place.

Marketing Funnels

So they got to your site. Woo hoo! Beyond the content itself, we need to make sure we have funnels set up on our website to increase leads and, hopefully, our conversions. Are you currently asking yourself what funnels are? A funnel is an automated workflow that tracks users through the stages of your conversion process. It begins with capturing a potential customer as a lead.

At the core, lead generation is all about capturing information from someone so you can reach out and nurture that relationship into a paying customer. It consists of attracting and converting strangers who are unfamiliar with your brand into new leads (potential customers) by getting them to engage with your company via forms, downloads or other types of interactions (subscribing to your newsletter, signing up for an event, etc.) and hopefully over time as you nurtured them, they purchase your product.

So, for example, if you’re selling an eBook, your goal might be getting a visitor to sign up for your mailing list so they can receive your marketing emails and eventually buy the eBook. The first step in this process would be to get them to visit your website, which could be via organic search results if you are focusing on your SEO, social media accounts, or paid ads if you have decided to do those for your business. The second step would be to get them to sign up for your mailing list by providing their email address. This can be done in a few ways; sometimes, individuals have a “lead magnet” or “offer” given to them in exchange for the customer’s email address; sometimes, it truly is just a sign-up form.

Be Ready to Pivot

And as always, with marketing and this entrepreneur journey you may be on, you must be ready to pivot and change at any time. Use analytics, data, and testing to determine what works and what doesn’t; then, you have to do more of the “good stuff,” stop doing the “bad stuff,” and just keep iterating from there.

While marketing is not everything for a business, it is a big part of the foundation for your business. Remember that it is continuous and goes beyond just getting more attention short term; you want to set your business up for future success, not an endless cycle of social media posts. The best thing is to recognize that marketing is a long-term process that requires consistent effort and building on the small things you do. And it is more important to create a marketing foundation for the long term to stand the test of time than it is to look for overnight success.

Playing the long game of marketing isn’t easy, but the hard work is worth it for the payoff in the long term.