The increasingly modern habit of digging up seeds to check if they’re working.
About three weeks after launching a marketing strategy, a certain kind of panic often sets in.
It usually starts off quietly. Someone checks the analytics and looks as worried as if they’ve just spotted a comet coming straight for Earth. A meeting gets called. Suddenly, phrases like “pivot quickly” and “we may need to rethink everything” start popping up everywhere.
All this happens just because the campaign hasn’t turned the business into a global sensation by Thursday lunch.
The Tiny Problem With Time
Modern marketing struggles with patience. This is mostly because the internet has taught us to expect instant feedback on everything.
You post something online, and within moments, you can see:
- views,
- clicks,
- likes,
- comments,
- and occasionally a stranger arguing passionately about something completely unrelated.
This makes it seem like real progress should happen right away. But building a brand usually takes a very long time.
The Strategy Panic Cycle
Most marketing strategies get dropped just when they start to feel boring to the team.
This is important.
A strategy often starts with excitement:
- New ideas
- Fresh visuals
- Enthusiastic presentations involving arrows
After a few weeks, things start to feel familiar. The team gets restless, and someone says, “I think people are tired of this already.”
They are not.
The team is bored because they see it every day, but the audience might have only noticed it a couple of times while eating lunch.
The Seductive Appeal of Starting Again
Changing strategy can feel emotionally rewarding. It feels proactive, dynamic, and decisive. You get new documents, new slogans, and maybe even a workshop with sticky notes and very strong coffee. On the other hand, patience doesn’t feel very exciting.
No one ever says, “Good news, everyone, we’ve decided to calmly continue doing the sensible thing for another six months.” And yet this is very often the correct decision.
The Algorithm Has Made Everyone Nervous
Part of the issue is that today’s platforms reward newness.
Every week there’s:
- a new trend,
- a new format,
- a new reason to panic about declining reach.
This makes it seem like being consistent is the same as standing still, but they aren’t.
A good strategy, repeated over time, builds recognition. Recognition leads to trust, and trust builds brands. But none of this happens fast enough for someone who checks engagement stats every few minutes.
The Difference Between Adjustment and Abandonment
Of course, not every strategy works.
Some really do need to change. Some should be quietly dropped and forgotten. But it’s important to know the difference between improving a strategy and giving up on it just because results aren’t instant.
A real strategy often needs to be repeated before it starts to work. Messages need to be reinforced, audiences need to get used to them, and trust usually comes after consistency. This is inconvenient, since impatience would much rather see a viral post by Wednesday.
Most Overnight Successes Take Ages
One of the biggest myths in marketing is the idea of an “overnight success.” Sometimes a campaign suddenly takes off, a brand is everywhere, and people call it “an instant hit.”
What people forget is the months or years of steady work that happened before.
The audience rarely sees the long stretch of:
- repeated messaging,
- steady positioning,
- gradual trust-building,
- and sometimes a bit of frustration.
People only notice when things finally start to take off.
So… Is It the Strategy?
Sometimes it genuinely is the strategy, but very often, the strategy is fine.
What really gets in the way is our need for instant certainty.
We want reassurance, proof, and to know that what we’re doing is actually working, not just disappearing online.
The truth is, good marketing often seems unimpressive just before it starts to work.
Final Thought (Filed Under Mild Existential Impatience)
Today’s marketing often mixes up speed with real effectiveness.
We optimise, react, pivot, refresh, relaunch, and reinvent ourselves all the time, often before giving anything a real chance to work. But brands are rarely built by constantly starting over.
Brands are built by being consistent long enough for people to remember you.
This process is slower, less exciting, and can be frustrating for everyone.
Have you found that your strategy isn’t working, or have you just run out of patience before it had a real chance?
If this made you think (or led to a few extra questions), check out our latest podcast episode, where we dive even deeper into modern marketing worries.
