Tending the Farm: Slow-growth tactics and why you need them

I've written about slow-growth marketing tactics a little bit before, mostly here, and we discussed short-term high impact tactics (and ways they can go awry) here and here.

Ooh, red delicious marketing leads - yum!

So let's talk about the slow-growth, long-term tactics I like to call "farms".  These tactics function as leads engines once they get going.

Think about your typical real-life farm - or rather, let's think about an apple orchard.

When you build an orchard, you have to find the land, buy the land, prepare it for planting, do the planting, tend the plants as they grow into maturity, fight off pests and disease to keep the trees strong, and eventually, the trees will bear fruit.  If you do a good job tending the orchard over time, they will reliably produce apples every season for you to enjoy.

Some marketing tactics are a lot like this orchard.  It takes a lot of work to prepare the environment and for the tactic to grow, but when it does, it will produce marketing "fruit" pretty reliably going forward, as long as it is properly maintained.

As I've mentioned before, "farm" tactics include (but aren't limited to) the following:

• SEO and web sites
• Leads Referral Groups
• Content marketing

In all of these, it is highly unusual that the tactic will reach its full potential in a very short period of time, so please, don't beat your head against a wall if they don't pay off quickly.  It's not going to pay off quickly, so don't set an inappropriate expectation for rate and timeliness of return.

You have to let the trees grow, and the fruit to ripen.  This takes a lot of patience, and when resources are thin, it's very easy to give up too quickly and waste your efforts.

Let's take SEO.  While there are times you will see rankings improve quickly, overall, it's well-known it takes time for a well-crafted SEO strategy to see results.  Check out what they say about it at the Search Engine Journal, HubPages, and for a more complicated viewpoint, here's SEO Theory.  If your search rankings don't improve dramatically overnight, it doesn't mean SEO doesn't work, or that the partner you're working with isn't good at what they do - it's simply the nature of the channel.

Leads referral groups and content marketing are the same way - it takes time to figure out what works for you, but when you do, they are reliable engines for leads and growth.

Having the appropriate expectations in place when you take on a "farm" tactic will save you a lot of frustration, worry, and money.  So if you need to build leads fast, don't expect these tactics to do that for you - set off a "bomb" like an event or sale instead (but don't expect a "bomb" tactic to produce long-term results).

A good marketing plan will include short-term and long-term tactics, as you need both fast leads ("bombs") and longer-term lead engines ("farms") to grow your business.

What's your favorite "farm" tactic, and how did you get it bearing fruit for you?  I'd love to know!