The Long Game: Practicing Patience and Setting Realistic Expectations for Marketing Results & Growth
Updated: 5 days ago
One of the most common (and challenging) conversations in marketing is around ROI, or the Return on Investment. Every client wants to know: "When will I see results?" "How will we measure success?" "Is this really worth the cost?"
As marketers, it's our job to guide these conversations with clarity, transparency, and heart-felt education, beginning early on and continuing through the partnership. Whether you're a fellow marketer or a business owner considering marketing support, here how to see ROI in a way that sets everyone up for success.
The gap between businesses that win and businesses that don't is almost never about strategy. It's patience. Trust the process and let the systems integrate and mature before you form an opinion and judge it.
Meaningful ROI takes time. Marketing is a journey, a process - NOT a mechanism for immediate results and instant sales.
The Curse of Dopamind Culture
AI may be contributing to an “instant results” mindset and unrealistic expectations. These tools and others have normalized immediate answers and rapid outputs.
In reality, success actually depends on many layers of complexity and humanity:
Human relationships
Trust
Creativity
Strategy
Timing
Editorial judgment
The Long Game of Organic Marketing
Effective, organic marketing takes time. A good rule of thumb is to plan for at least three months/90 days of consistent, reliable data before making meaningful assessments. And if you're a start up or new company starting without brand recognition, this will take even longer because you'll be building from the ground up.
Think of it like building a house - you don't want to rush and cut corners, as that will create double-work down the line.
Months 1-3: Laying the Foundation (Audit & Align)
Months 4-6: Building the Structure (Movement & Momentum)
Months 7-12: Adding the Roof, Windows & Doors (Refining & Scaling)
Establishing this slow-growth mindset upfront helps avoid unrealistic expectations and keeps everyone focused on sustainable growth rather than instant wins.
Reminder: These benchmarks are based on ORGANIC growth. Paid ads may accelerate your results.
The goal of marketing and PR is not immediate fame or quick sales—it is creating momentum and developing a strategy that compounds over time.
"The best marketing you'll ever do is the marketing you don't quit after 60-90 days."
Jack Pires
.
The Snowball Effect
PR momentum specifically often follows a similar timeline.
First 30 days
Early PR work often includes:
Discovering what stories are actually newsworthy
Identifying compelling angles
Developing messaging and narratives
Researching relevant reporters
Building media relationships
Creating a consistent pitching strategy
30–90 days:
Early conversations
Smaller wins
Reporter relationships
Initial outreach
New coverage opportunities
3–6+ months:
More significant placements
Increased credibility
Larger opportunities
1 year:
Believe it or not, Some pitches may continue generating results months or even years later.
Marketing is like planting a garden. It needs time, care, and consistency to grow. You don’t see results overnight, but that doesn’t mean it’s not working. It takes strategy and commitment, not shortcuts.
Sometimes progress in digital marketing feels impossible—until suddenly it isn’t. Efforts compound and results skyrocket.
The Invisible Work
That first tier-one headline is often the result of months of unseen effort. What looks like a simple article placement often involves:
Years of relationship-building with journalists and editors
Dozens of conversations
Research
Strategic pitching and countless revisions and refinements
Understanding a brand’s unique story
Timing, relevance, and editorial interest
Follow-ups
Collaboration between client and PR team
The strongest results happen when clients Trust the process, Understand the timeline, Collaborate openly, and Celebrate wins with the team who helped create them.
A common misconception is that paying for PR equals guaranteed press coverage. Unrealistic expectations, like major media wins in one month, are not good for anyone. In reality, PR professionals cannot control editorial decisions, news cycles, journalist priorities, or timing.
Redefine ROI: It's More Than Direct Sales
ROI isn't always immediate revenue. In fact, some of the most valuable returns are less obvious at first:
Time Savings: If a business owner saves 20 hours per month by outsourcing social media, and their billable rate is $150/hour, that's $3,000 worth of time freed up.
Visibility & Credibility: A consistent online presence builds trust, authority, and a warm audience who are more likely to convert later.
Lead Nurturing: Social media and content marketing often support other sales processes, like email signups, demo requests, or consultation bookings.
Brand Validation: For some industries, active and inviting social channels can tip the scale when prospects are comparing options.
Look beyond sales and short-term growth. Real ROI looks at the long-term impact: gaining back time for billable work, quietly nurturing warm leads who trust your brand, and cultivating clear data to make smart decisions.
Unpopular truth: Sometimes marketing in mysterious and quiet ways. There are always going to be cautious, trust-sensitive customers who prefer to "lurk" or observe and then engage or convert months or years down the road. Be patient. Silence doesn't mean your efforts are not working.
Modify Your Metrics
No two businesses have identical definitions of success. For some, sales is the main metric. For others, it's brand awareness, thought leadership, or audience engagement. Work collaboratively to define what success really looks like deep down:
What steps happen between awareness and sale?
How does social media fit into the broader sales process?
Which benchmarks feel meaningful and realistic?
While full ROI is about the long-term birds-eye view, you can track early progress with smaller, meaningful KPIs. Break your goals into shorter-term phases, looking at the early wins on a weekly or monthly level:
Audience growth rates
Engagement improvements (comments, shares, saves)
Website traffic from social channels
Lead magnet downloads or newsletter signups
Event attendance or inquiry forms
Identify what micro-metrics matters most for your unique goals, and note the early wins to build confidence and demonstrate momentum.
“A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.”
Henry Ford
Find the Right Fit
Not every business is really ready for the investment of marketing services. Some clients may not be a good fit if they're expecting instant sales from a few social posts per week. That's why these conversations are crucial during the sales process.
If a client isn’t open to education about marketing's long-term nature, they may need more foundational understanding before investing. Having these honest conversations upfront saves everyone frustration down the road.
At the end of the day, strategy + consistency = long-term ROI. The strongest growth takes time, and it's always happening subtly,incrementally behind the scenes. Keep going. Trust the process.
PR is not a shortcut to attention—it is the long-term process of earning relevance, credibility, and trust. The best coverage is built, not bought.
Wrapping It Up
The Bottom Line: If results aren’t instant, don’t panic. Stay intentional, stay hopeful, stay patient.
Marketing is a process of building, testing, refining, and optimizing. With clear expectations and open communication, both marketers and clients can enter into partnerships that are collaborative, transparent, and ultimately, much more successful.
Whether you're a marketer refining your onboarding process or a business owner considering marketing support, remember: good marketing is a long-term investment. The more aligned you are from the start, the stronger your results will be over time.
With over 15 years of marketing experience across a variety of sectors and settings, I want you to know and trust that I am a true partner in your growth. Have patience and belief in the process. We're in this together!
Reminder: Patience Makes Perfect. In a perfect world we would always see the progress we are making, and there would be no stagnation or setback. But real growth is not linear, and looks different for everyone. So lean into the journey and continue the path with experience and effort. Your reward is just around the corner.
Erin Ratliff is a holistic business coach and consultant specializing in organic growth + visibility for heart-led soul-preneurs and energy-sensitive self-starters in pursuit of personal and planetary healing.
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