"You may delay, but time will not." – Benjamin Franklin
"Just do it." – Nike
There are many wise quotes, proverbs and at least one shoe company slogan that extol the virtue of taking action and warn against the dangers of procrastination.
But many companies still put off making necessary changes, such as launching an inbound marketing program. After all, if you have survived this long without it, why should there be any rush to get started now?
The answer to that question is that there is a price you pay for waiting to get started with inbound marketing initiatives.
A Different Model
To fully grasp why time is money with inbound marketing, you have to understand how such programs work.
Outbound marketing is an expense. You pay money, run an ad campaign and get results. If you stop paying for it, the ads will stop running, and you will stop getting results. It is like going to the grocery store and buying food; if you stop, you starve. With time, outbound channels are becoming less effective as new technologies change how we consume information.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is an investment. To continue with the food example, inbound marketing is similar to growing a garden. There is work required at the beginning of the process, such as tilling the soil and planting seeds. At first, such activities don't seem to produce much fruit. But if you continue to make an effort and work hard, you'll start seeing more and more results.
Exponential Growth
When you start a company blog or post your first status update on your social media account, you will get relatively few views. You don't have any fans or followers, and you don't have any inbound links to drive traffic and improve your search rankings.
With each new piece of content, though, you will draw in more readers, followers and links to add to the ones you already have. Eventually, you may have hundreds or even thousands of each. At that point, each new piece of content will have a much bigger impact--it will be seen by many more people, get more inbound links and shares on social networks, and be weighted more heavily by search engines. Through all of that, your content will produce more leads and result in more customers.
But here's the important thing to note: even though it produced a much bigger return, that content did not require any more work than your very first piece. The return on your investment for inbound marketing grows the longer you have been at it.
The Cost of Waiting
Everybody has competitors. If you don't, you will soon, assuming your business is profitable.
In the old world of outbound marketing, you could buy your way into the conversation. In today's inbound marketing landscape, time is at least as important as money. Good content, after all, usually isn't that expensive. Online networking and word-of-mouth are valuable, and both take time to develop.
So let's say two roughly identical competitors are both planning to start inbound marketing programs. Company A starts today, while Company B waits six months to do the same. All else being equal, a year from now Company A will likely be getting at least twice as many visitors and leads from their inbound marketing program as Company B. And two years from now, Company A will still be getting twice as big a return because both programs have continued to grow. The same will be true in years three, four and five. Again, assuming all else is equal, the company that waits to get started will never be able to catch up.
That is the cost of procrastinating with inbound marketing: you lose a time for growth which you can never get back.
If you are behind the competition, don't fret. All is not lost. With the right strategy, you can improve your inbound marketing growth curve and eventually overtake those with a head start. But even with a superior strategy, each day lost makes your task that much harder.
The time to get started with inbound marketing is now. As a wise ad copywriter once said: "Just do it."
* Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
