The Tortoise and the Cyber-Hare
Years ago we used to talk about the ‘rat race’ and at the end of the eighties it was seen as a good thing to give up all your finance-led, “keep up with the Joneses” trappings and go for the simpler life. Being a slave to the ever-encroaching pace of technological life was definitely seen as a weakness and we all thought that the future would bring us more leisure time and less 9-5 office slavery.
How wrong we were.
The Internet changed everything but not in the way we thought. Instead of putting all information at our fingertips in a way that we could control, it almost became our master by ‘pushing’ information to us through every device we could possibly imagine.
Our phones are constantly telling us when people are emailing us, texting us or posting something on our Facebook wall. The constant chatter of the online world would be almost unbearable if it wasn’t for the fact that we’ve now come to expect it. Indeed, silence is seen as very odd my many people.
News is pumped out 24 hours a day from numerous channels and through almost every device that has a plug. Almost every item in the house sports an internet connection – in fact I’ve recently heard of a washing machine with one allowing the user to start the spin cycle from work. Doesn’t explain who’s going to load it though.
The Internet is everywhere and information is thrown at us from every angle and the very nature of everything “on-line” means we now expect instant results in most aspects of life. This requirement for everything NOW means that us lowly SEO types have a troubled and difficult time.
Marketing, you see, hasn’t changed. We still need to get our message out to as many people as possible and this, unfortunately, takes time. Unless you have an unlimited budget and can afford to hire a pretty top-quality super-star then you’re going to have trouble.
No, to do your SEO correctly you need to take your time and this is what really hacks off most customers. Many of them believe that it took Amazon only a couple of weeks and a budget of a couple of week’s salary to get to where it is today – but it just ‘aint true.
Unfortunately, if you want to get your product found by people out there in the wide world of Internet land then you’re going to have to spend time and money doing it. Frustrating isn’t it?
But it’s worse. You see, those who can’t get their instant fix of sales nirvana and don’t have the stamina to sit out a lengthy campaign are missing a trick – because there’s always someone else who will be able to wait, and they’ll beat you.
They won’t beat you today and they won’t beat you tomorrow but give them a year and they’ll have you. They’ll be ahead of you and they’ll be taking your customers off you. And guess what? You won’t be able to take them back because you won’t be able to do it quickly.
To some companies, if they can’t have an instant solution to a problem then they simply won’t address the problem at all – and they will be the poorer for it.
So, be a tortoise, not a hare and be considerate, patient and content in your marketing and you’ll eventually beat your competition and importantly, keep beating them. Obviously, you could simply do nothing and guess what? Nothing will happen.