The importance of timing in digital marketing

Timing is everything, especially when it comes to marketing your business! Good marketing is about being at the right place at the right time, especially in a world full of noise. Sadly, as I meet clients daily, I realize that timing is the most overlooked aspect of marketing in organizations and businesses.

Here are four reasons why timing is essential:

1. Timing can create better launches

A few years ago, I wrote an article about what digital marketers can learn from the movie industry. In the article, I concentrated on how Hollywood approaches marketing through a multidimensional lens, tapping into a timeline that we fail to see as marketers.

Most consumers search for a product or a service before it hits the market. For example, customers look for a movie before its release, a fact that has even been backed up by research from Google.

To capitalize on this trend and attract new potential clients, marketers should focus on pre-releases and post-launches. Marketing campaigns should be segmented into three phases:

1. The build-up phase, where you create a sense of excitement for your followers, users and visitors.
2. The launch phase.
3. The post-launch period, where you can continue to capitalize on the hype and repurpose your material.

2. Timing can help you align with your customer’s journey

It is essential to understand that all customers are different and react to products differently. Their purchasing habits vary depending on the product and service they aim to buy. Customers make decisions at different times when it comes to different products. Google calls these micro-moments; it is imperative that marketers are present during these moments to fulfill the needs of the customer.

Therefore, we need to time our campaigns and efforts to align with the customer’s journey. Keep in mind that the timeline of this journey differs between the industries we are in, the products we sell and the areas we want to target.

3. Timing can help you optimize different marketing channels

We can optimize different marketing channels across different periods with the correct timing.

By using Search Engine Marketing (SEM), we can gather results quickly because we aren’t waiting on website rankings. Then, we can use these findings on other channels. Google paid search ads are a great way to bring visibility to your products or services.

By using Search Engine Optimization (SEO), we can garner sustainable and organic long-term results. While it does take time, SEO strategies are more effective than SEM because they have a higher click-through rate, which grows and compounds over time.

The timing of both of these channels is imperative. While the foundation of a successful digital marketing campaign is SEO, carefully intertwining both techniques will produce noticeable results. SEO can provide the grassroots for SEM strategies to work their magic. They will also allow for better CPC in your SEM campaigns and more bang per buck.

Social media & PR are a great midterm approach that build authority and trust around your brand and site. Social media can help you get ahead by allowing you to use platforms where most of your audiences are. Using it in synch with other digital channels and at the right time will allow you to augment your engagement.

All of these digital marketing tools and channels complement each other, yet their roles and the size of their roles differ across time. This is marketing done right; this is holistic marketing.

4. Timing can help you capitalize on market trends and events

It is essential to keep an eye on what people in your industry are talking about because it can give you valuable insight into the best time to launch campaigns.

“If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail,” said Benjamin Franklin.

As part of my class, I always ask my students to start with a trend analysis. I then ask them to create a calendar that aligns with these trends and the important dates that might impact their market, audience, and company.

You can capitalize on these important dates by researching major events and paying close attention to trending topics.

Takeaway

The right moment, or the right micro-moment, can go a long way in marketing.

Marketing is about reaching the right people, in the right place, with the right intention, in the proper context, at the right time.

As Al Pacino said in the movie ‘Any Given Sunday’: “One half a step too late or too early and you don't quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast, and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us.”

This is marketing. Time is everywhere and all around us, so let’s make it work for us.

To learn more about digital marketing, register for Tarek Riman’s upcoming workshop, “Introduction to Digital Marketing.”

Want to learn more about Tarek Riman? You can find his bio here.