How Long Does it Take for Marketing to Work for B2B Businesses?

While on one side there are B2B companies that are extremely aggressive about their marketing efforts, there is another set on the opposite side of the spectrum that is always hesitant to invest time, effort, and resources into marketing. One of the key reasons for this is the long-term nature of the function.

Marketing's job is to get someone in your ICP to the table to talk. As easy as it may sound, there is a long process involved in it. First, you need to be in front of your ideal customers many times. Next, you need to 'hook' them to grab their attention. Then to generate their interest in what you offer, you have to use multiple touchpoints over the course of several days, weeks, or even months.

All these make marketing challenging. However, it is important to understand how long it takes for your marketing engine to work so that you know:

• What resources and budget to allocate to it?
• The ROI you can generate in the period
• How much marketing can support your revenue and pipeline growth in the upcoming forecast periods?

In this edition of the Elevate Your Marketing newsletter, we take a very practical and realistic view of this topic. We look at various channels individually and explore the time it requires for each to start showing some results. We will also attempt to draw a 360-degree picture of how long a B2B marketing engine can take to start delivering predictable results.

B2B marketing channels - time it takes to generate results

As mentioned above, let us first look at some of the most common B2B marketing channels and understand the time each will take to start showing results. Here, the assumption is that we are getting started with each channel from ground zero. We look at the numbers as if you were kickstarting the marketing activities today.

But before we start, let us first define, what we mean by 'results'.

Ideally, you would want every channel to deliver the end goal consistently, which is generating leads for most B2B businesses. However, here we will try to arrive at a period where each channel starts showing positive leading indicators. We will talk about those indicators as we dive deep into each channel.

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

If you are experimenting with SEO, you have to be in it for the long term. It is not a channel that will give you results in say 2 weeks. You have to consistently put in your efforts over an extended period of time to build a strong search engine presence.

Now, how long it takes for SEO to work will depend a lot on your industry. In addition, how aggressive you are with your efforts also has a huge role. But in general, you should start seeing positive results in 3 to 6 months.

By positive results, I am referring to a consistent increase in traffic. If you start generating leads predictably within this period, you are among the top 1% when it comes to leveraging SEO for growth.

Related: Getting Started With SEO-led Content In 3 Days

2. LinkedIn organic marketing

Growing a company page organically on LinkedIn is extremely tough. Unless you have enough happening around your business, your posts are less likely to attract a lot of engagement.

For instance, you would have noticed that on LinkedIn, posts related to events, employer branding, awards & recognition, etc., do well. If you are actively doing these things, it becomes easier to grab attention than simply creating educational or informational content. This is why I said you need to have enough happening around your business. Because talking about such things can trigger reach and engagement.

Provided you have such cool stuff to talk about, I believe 3 months is a fair period to expect some results. Initially, focus on improving the number of impressions, engagement rate, and followers. Later, as you start seeing some traction from the platform, you can add leads as well as one of the primary goals.

If you are an early-stage B2B business, you can also focus on building a personal brand for the founders. This accelerates the process and might even bring you some deals that are essential for the survival of the business.

Also read: How To Create Content For LinkedIn Organic Marketing [With 10+ Examples And 5 Templates]

3. Video marketing

Video marketing can take anywhere between 6 months and 1 year to work. This is because winning with business content on YouTube takes time. However, there is one big advantage that most B2B founders and marketers don't see when it comes to video marketing. It is cross-channel promotion.

Maybe you create videos primarily for YouTube. But you can promote it on other channels like LinkedIn for example. This way, with one content asset, you reach a wide audience. With such an omnichannel promotion strategy, video marketing might as well give you results in a period as short as 3 months.

4. Email marketing

Email marketing is of two types:

1. Educational and promotional emails such as newsletters, product launches, webinar promotions, etc.
2. Sales-driven outbound email campaigns.

Both have a different pace. The former is more long-term in nature and focuses on converting leads by nurturing them over a period. It's a combination of multiple touchpoints that often leads to them becoming customers. Consider a period of 3 to 6 months to make this method of email marketing work.

However, the latter is aimed at generating demand in the short run. Including the setup time, your cold emailing campaigns should start showing results within a period of 4 to 8 weeks.

Also read: B2B Email Marketing Trends For 2024 And Beyond

5. Content marketing

Content marketing is broad. SEO, email marketing, and video marketing have overlaps with it. Here, we can consider all forms of content that do not fall into the other categories we discussed above. They mostly include assets that are usually gated on the website such as ebooks, whitepapers, and case studies.

Now, one thing to note here is that whether you can generate leads with these marketing assets will completely depend on how well you promote them using various channels. Assuming that you do that using channels such as social media, emails, or ads, you should get an indication as to whether your gated content is working within a period of 4 to 8 weeks of hosting them on the website.

6. Event marketing

Event marketing includes the following tactics:

• Hosting your own offline events
• Conducting online events and webinars
• Attending popular industry events, conferences, and exhibitions

In some industries, events work as a direct channel for lead generation. A good example is the heavy industrial equipment segment where a lot of the vendor discovery happens during events.

However, in certain other industries, events are more about creating visibility and 'showing up' in front of your ideal customers. Also, industry events happen only a few times a year. Due to this dynamic nature, it's hard to put a number to the period for making the channel work. But in general, you need to give it anywhere between 6 months to 1 year.

7. Paid ads

In B2B, the most commonly used ad platforms are Google ads and LinkedIn ads. When it comes to Google ads, for most industries, it is recommended to start with search ads and make it work before moving to display ads or video ads. With that approach, you should start generating some results in a matter of 4 to 6 weeks. This is because Google search ads is intent-driven.

On the other hand, for LinkedIn ads, the timeframe is longer in most cases. It is usually around 3 to 6 months. This is because, on LinkedIn, you are showing ads to people who didn't show a clear intent to purchase your solutions. Hence, you need to use multiple retargeting layers before you convert someone into a lead.

8. PR

Public Relations is event-based. You need to have something like funding, a product launch, or a company acquisition to talk about in your PR campaigns. Essentially, you need something share-worthy. If you have the budget, PR campaigns are a great opportunity to improve your visibility and establish credibility.

The impact of PR campaigns is time-bound. However, if done well, a single campaign can give the necessary push your business needs at any point in time. Considering the preparation time, a single PR campaign can take 1 to 3 months to take off.

9. Partner marketing

Partner marketing is a long-term game. Unless you have some combined lead generation activities, in the first few months you will be mostly focusing on co-branding campaigns. Examples include:

• A joint webinar
• Joint product launch and associated PR activities
• Tagging each other on social media
• Exhibiting in events together

Some business partners also co-host events for the common audience they are targeting. Given the nature of partner marketing activities, consider a timeframe of 6 months to 1 year for it to deliver the desired results.

10. Other key marketing channels

Here, let us look at some of the other B2B marketing channels and see how long they typically take to show results:

1. Podcast marketing: Podcasting is all about establishing credibility and thought leadership. That often takes time. The frequency of publishing new episodes also matters here. If we assume 1 every week, a period of 6 months to 1 year is the bare minimum you should consider before arriving at any conclusion.
2. Community marketing: Community marketing is a long-term game. You need to first earn the trust and loyalty of the members before you can start pitching something to them. Given this, 1 year is the period I would set aside for community marketing before expecting any return.
3. Influencer marketing: Influencer marketing can take different forms in B2B. Each campaign has a different objective. For example, micro-influencer marketing is usually about increasing visibility and not focused on leads. Like PR, influencer marketing is also event-driven. If you implement one campaign right, it should give you results right away. Including the planning phase, this could be around 2 to 3 months.
4. Referral marketing: Referral marketing is used by many SaaS companies to incentivize their customers to invite others to use the product. If you consider getting even 1 customer as a win, that can happen as quickly as 4 to 6 weeks including the planning and preparation time.
5. Direct mail: Tools like Sendoso are bringing back the charm of direct mail where they combine the best of physical and digital worlds. It is mostly seen as a tactic to improve engagement and not directly generate leads, and is often used in combination with other tactics (like email marketing for example). Hence it's hard to put a number to it. However, 3 months is a fair period for you to start evaluating the results.

The integrated marketing effect

While we looked at 'marketing speed' through the lens of individual channels, no channel works in isolation. The impact of marketing is felt as a result of multiple channels working together. Hence, it is not a good idea to see the numbers independently.

Let me explain.

Imagine you are using LinkedIn marketing as one of the key marketing channels. The effectiveness of the channel will depend on the type of content you publish on the platform. If you want to post good content (whether it's videos, articles, or infographics), you need to create good content. That has to be often done in other places first, such as your website, YouTube channel, sales deck, etc.

This necessarily means that for LinkedIn to work, you need to have a strong supporting content engine. This is the case with most B2B marketing channels. Hence, while you should closely watch the time each channel takes to show results, have an integrated marketing mindset and give your marketing engine a good 6 months before changing course or modifying the strategy.

At the same time, for channels that are more dynamic like ads and cold emailing, be sure to make quick adjustments so that you can adapt and grow quickly.

Final words

Marketing is a marathon and not a sprint. As you experiment with various ideas over the first 6 months or a year, consistently analyze your data to see what works and what doesn't. It is important to fail fast and learn from your mistakes. End of the day, no two businesses are the same. Keep experimenting and find your sweet spot when it comes to marketing success.

Looking to take your B2B marketing efforts to the next level? Try Skalegrow

Are you looking for a 'no-nonsense' B2B marketing agency? Give Skalegrow a try. No false promises. No 'we will change the world' narratives. We focus on simple marketing tactics that work. Moreover, we spend the time to understand your industry, however niche it is.

Visit our website to learn more about what we bring to the table. You could also write to us at [email protected] .

More learning resources

Skalegrow has a blog that has more than 60 articles on various topics in B2B marketing. We discuss content, ABM, demand gen, martech, LinkedIn marketing, and much more there. Check it out here .

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